Chinese Officials Dared to Swim in Toxic Water

Story first appeared on USA Today -

Swim for a half-hour in a river in east China's Cangnan county and win $48,000.
Sound like easy money? Take a look at the river.

Chinese angry about their toxic and trash-choked rivers have made online offers of cash rewards to the chiefs of their local government's environmental protection bureaus to take a swim in the waterways they are in charge of protecting.

One Internet posting offers $32,000 if an official will spend 20 minutes in a river in Rui'an or $16,000 for a 10-minute river dip in Dongguan down south.

None of the Internet users expects the officials to take the bait. The social media campaign against water pollution that inspired these rewards leads some analysts to hope authorities will take action after the relative success of a public movement to increase government transparency over the abysmal air quality in many Chinese cities.

China's water and air quality has long been sacrificed by the government to China's thirst for industrial growth in recent decades. Even the government releases grim statistics: 64% of groundwater in 118 Chinese cities is "severely polluted," state news agency Xinhua reports.

To provide examples, Chinese journalist and activist Deng Fei, whose Twitter-like micro-blog has almost 3 million followers, asked people last week to post pictures of rivers in their hometowns as they traveled there for the recent Lunar New Year celebrations.

The strong response, by thousands of Chinese Internet users, "shows more Chinese pay close attention to pollution, and now they have the tools to express their opinions," Deng said.

Although China's citizens still lack formal channels, such as democratic elections, to influence their government, this social-media-driven campaign "has become a large-scale discussion topic that shows the will of the people," so China's "parliament," the National People's Congress (NPC), and ministries must take notice, he said.

Two delegates to next month's annual session of the NPC — when the ruling Communist Party's new leader, Xi Jinping, will be appointed president — promised to raise the issue of water pollution, Deng said.

The rewards for hazardous swimming started Saturday when eyeglass entrepreneur Jin Zengmin posted photos online of a filthy river in Rui'an in Zhejiang province, with his $32,000 bet for the area's environmental protection director. Jin reminisced about swimming in the river as a child and watching his mother washing clothes there.

"Even animals don't dare swim in these rivers, much less officials," Deng said.

The offering of money "is an expression of anger and frustration over the dereliction of duty by local environmental officials and their failure to enforce the rules," said Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, a Beijing-based non-profit group.  Middle-aged Chinese "remember their rivers used to be cleaner, drinkable, swimmable and touchable, but no longer," he said.

This social media push has the potential to grow into something similar to the air quality campaign, given that the problem of water pollution is as bad or even worse, Ma said. "The local government still puts GDP (gross domestic product) rate ahead of environmental protection. We need the public to change that," he said.

The chief environmental official in Rui'an, Bao Zhenmin, blamed river pollution on rubbish discarded by residents and migrant workers, not shoe factories, as Jin alleged. Bao promised steps to reduce the problem, chinanews.com reported.

Deng said the answer is for the government to share more information with the public about water discharges, increase legal penalties against illegal discharges and ease restrictions on people filing lawsuits in environmental cases. He said environmental offices should be controlled by Beijing, not the local governments often responsible for pollution.

EPA Wants to Revise Stormwater Regulations

Story first appeared in The Seattle Times.
The Presidential administration wants to change the rules applying to stormwater running off logging roads, blunting a landmark court ruling that found the muddy water running into salmon streams and reservoirs should be regulated like industrial pollution.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) filed notice Wednesday in the Federal Register proposing to revise stormwater regulations to say hundreds of thousands of miles of logging roads on private and public lands nationwide don't need the same kinds of permits that factories must get. Some of the roads are paved, but most are graveled, and some are bare dirt.

Instead, they would be regulated under a less stringent system known as "Best Management Practices," where authorities set up guidelines for the design and maintenance of logging roads to minimize erosion that sends mud into rivers.

The EPA is reviewing how states and tribes handle the issue, and plans to issue the new rules by Sept. 30, when an exemption for the timber industry enacted by Congress expires.

An EPA spokeswoman said the agency was taking advantage of flexibility within the Clean Water Act and would consider a range of approaches that did not require permits.

The move comes as the U.S. Supreme Court considers whether to hear the case. The high court asked the Obama administration's top lawyer to suggest whether the question needed higher review. The U.S. Solicitor General's brief is expected in a few days.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2010 that the muddy water running off roads used in industrial logging is the same as any other industrial pollution, requiring a Clean Water Act permit from the EPA. The case was brought by the Northwest Environmental Defense Center in Portland against the Oregon Department of Forestry over logging roads in Tillamook State Forest.

The timber industry said maintaining the status quo through-best management practices as suggested by the EPA was the best course but urged Congress to make permanent the temporary exemption granted the timber industry after the appeals-court ruling.

If allowed to stand, the 9th Circuit approach will cost hundreds of millions of dollars, kill thousands of jobs and invite protracted litigation over permit technicalities without any corresponding environmental benefit. Federal, state, tribal and private resource professionals agree that complicated and costly federal permits will not make our rivers and streams any cleaner.

The executive director of the Northwest Environmental Defense Center said industrial permits would provide better protection for salmon habitat and clean drinking water, and that the EPA could award blanket permits similar to those held by the Oregon Department of Transportation for paved roads to makes things less complicated.

EPA ought to provide clarity and certainty through guidance and rule-making, but the substance of the proposal is off-base.

EPA has long recognized that there are some industrial logging activities and logging roads that pollute streams and require (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) permits. The EPA will continue advocating that permits are required for industrial-scale activities, while looking for opportunities to be flexible or responsive to concerns about small forest landowners and nonindustrial logging activities.

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