The manager of a chemical company in northern China has been fired because of a wastewater leak that badly polluted a local river, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Sunday.
BEIJING — The manager of a chemical company in northern China has been fired because of a wastewater leak that badly polluted a local river, the official Xinhua News Agency reported Sunday.
The spill at the Jintai Chlorine and Alkaline Chemical Company Ltd. in Shaanxi province's Mianzhi County occurred on Feb. 4 when three of the company's four processing tanks collapsed, spilling some 2 million liters (530,000 gallons) of alkaline waste into the Wuding River, Xinhua said.
Jintai officials decided Friday to fire the company's general manager, Wang Zengzhan, Xinhua said. Other Jintai staff will "face corresponding punishment" when an investigation into the incident ends, the report said, without giving details.
The incident follows a spate of spills in recent months, the most serious being an explosion at chemical plant in November that dumped chemicals into the Songhua River, the source of drinking water for tens of millions of people living in northeastern China and Russia.
Xinhua said that several of Jintai's processing tanks had been leaking 10 days before the tanks collapsed, but the company failed to report it to local environmental protection officials.
The spill badly polluted the Wuding River although drinking water to local residents was not affected, it said.
The Beijing News, in an earlier report, said that officials were alerted to the spill by calls from Mianzhi residents on Feb. 5.
Under new regulations enacted earlier this month, serious accidents must be reported directly to the Environmental Protection Agency, known as SEPA, or to the State Council, China's cabinet, within an hour.
Source: Associated Press
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