Zhu Chuuyun lost her husband to cancer; she says a polluted river caused it.
Despite the health risks, Zhu says she and her daughter still depend on the river for their sustenance.
Posted on 07/26/2007 5:26:57 PM PDT by JACKRUSSELL
Deep in the Guangdong province of China, I met a woman I won't soon forget.
Wearing a straw hat and carrying a sickle, Zhu Chuuyun is a farmer, growing rice like many in her village......
She told me it all started when the water in her village turned red. First the red water claimed her crops, and then it stole away her husband. He died an awful death, suffering for more than a year before finally succumbing to cancer. The problem, as she described it to me, is that the Hengshui River, which provides the only water to her village, has become so polluted that it is slowly robbing the entire area of life. The most tragic thing is that she has no choice but to use this water, even though she believes it is killing people. She told me this over quiet tears, sobbing and talking about how much she misses her husband.
For a couple of days, we have been looking around the area where Zhu Chuuyun lives. Many refer to this particular place as a cancer village. In fact, nearly 30 out of the 400 people who call this village home have died of cancer over the last several years. While it is hard to say if this red water is the cause, we have learned a few things. The river is in fact red, allegedly because of the oxidation, or rusting, of heavy metals that are released during the mining process at Dabaoshan, a mine through which the river runs 60 kilometers away. That same mining process also results in the deposition of heavy metals such as lead, arsenic, zinc and cadmium into the water at staggeringly high levels, and we do know those chemicals can cause cancer.......
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Zhu Chuuyun lost her husband to cancer; she says a polluted river caused it.
Despite the health risks, Zhu says she and her daughter still depend on the river for their sustenance.
There is no such thing as a free lunch - this cheap stuff from China is gonna come back to bite us in the butt.
Yeah we’ll be eating it or taking it as vitamins.
Same here in the United States.. Course you know that (SSA) Social Security in the U.S. IS PURE SOCIALISM... And most Americans are in complete denial of this..
How can a government TAX something you OWN..
If they do they are renting it you.. (i.e. property taxes, liens. licenses, permits etc.)
Not so quick on the draw, partner. A few months back I read a travel book by Simon Winchester (whose written some very good books. I highly recommend him) called
"The River at the Center of the World: A Journey Up the Yangtze..." written in, I'm guessing, the early 1980's or so* but it was a while back.
Anyway, Winchester, who had been to China several times before, doesn't pull any punches. The pollution he writes about -- both industrial and human (sewage) -- would make your hair stand on edge.
It wasn't until he got a good bit passed Kunming, and up to the boiling, near waterfall-like rapids at the China/Tibet border of the Yangtze that the water began to actually look like water.
Mainly, he speculates, b/c the water is so "wild" and the sheer chasms it boils through are so inhospitable that human inhabitance it well nigh impossible. Otherwise it would probably be just as polluted. And remember, this was back in the later 1970's to early 1980's. 
The moral of this post is that America, Americans, Wal- Mart, what have you didn't bring hell-with-the-lid-pried-off-pollution-right-out-of-Charles-Dicksons to China. It is a hardy perennial.
*Reissued in paperback '04
From the map... why is it called the “Yellow Sea”?
The piss of a billion Chinamen flowing into it for time immemorial might have something to do with it.
Its name comes from the sand particles that color its water, originating from the Yellow River.
Ping.
China is also starting to spend massively on water treatment. They’ve got a long road ahead, and are going to have to spend incredible sums of money. A shimmer of light is American companies are world leaders in water treatment of all kinds. Like General Electric.
China was in a very tough spot 15 years ago. Too poor to afford water treatment.. we are talking 100’s of billions to make a dent. Yet to build the industry to get enough money, it would do even greater pollution!
Now they’ve got the money, like their 1.2 trillion in reserves. But even that sum of money.. I read it might take a trillion dollars in investment China needs in water in the next like 8 years. The only way out is engineering solutions, and paying whatever the cost for world class companies to come in.
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Correction. The ONLY way out is to abolish communism. The free flow of democracy and capitalism would clean that water up, pronto!
I’ve got a few Winchester books. I think he’s kind of an acquired taste-the paragraph-long sentences you have to read three times and the occasional smart ass limey leftist comment, but overall I like how he brings things together.
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