时间：2022-09-30 09:56:12
After 48 hours， the water crisis in Lanzhou was finally appeased. Lanzhou， the capital city of G a n s u Province with over 3 million people， eventually restored to the peace.
On April 13， the Lanzhou authority published the data of monitoring for the 24th time after the benzene accident on April 11. The result shows that the content of benzene found in the drinking water in Xigu District， where the contamination is the most serious， dropped from 11.23 mg per liter to 1.31 mg per liter. The sample from Anning District saw a slightly increasing content （from 1.64 mg/liter to 3 mg/liter）. Meanwhile， no benzene was found in the drinking water in Chengguan District and Qilihe District in 24 hours before the report.
As per the national standard of drinking water in China， the content of benzene should not be higher than 10 mg per liter. The crisis has ended as long as the meter does not rise again in the future.
The end of the crisis might bring some relief to local people and authority of Lanzhou， but the truth behind this contamination remained a mystery. Each party that was suspected of being responsible for the contamination spared no efforts in the self-defense. The governmental departments， Veolia Water （Lanzhou） Group， CNPC’s Lanzhou branch and others are all trying to rid themselves of the responsibility.
Environmental Protection Department creditability questioned twice
Actually， one month before this crisis， there were reports about the “strange odor” from local media. Several citizens had written to the environmental protection department， asking for explanations and solutions. At that time， the environmental protection department of Lanzhou swore that it would report the data of water quality monitor on a daily basis. However， the benzene incident of this time was not known to the public until the report that came out the next day.
Let’s reverse the clock and see what happened in the 3-day incident. The CPC Committee of Lanzhou and the municipal government of this city held a video conference to report the disposal of the benzene-contamination incident. In the conference Yu Haiyan， the CPC Chief of Lanzhou， said that “our information delivery system is transparent and public and our handling is efficient and useful as of we received the warning at 7：00 on the morning of April 11.”
The analysts that looked back into the incident considered 7：00 on the morning of April 11 as a critical time point. Based on this， they could figure out the details of what happened from April 11 to 13.
One hour after the reception of the report， Yu Haiyan held an emergent conference in the office of Veolia Water（Lanzhou） Group. Those present in the conference included the leaders and experts from the Gansu provincial departments of environmental protection， health and industries.
After the conference， the government of Lanzhou decided to stop the northern self-flow pipe to keep the contaminated water from flowing into households. The southern pipe will keep working as usual. Meanwhile， the hydraulic pressure in Lanzhou was lowered and the water supply for some remote areas was cut off. The factories were restricted in the access to water to prevent the water usage of citizens for life from being affected.
At 12：00， April 11， the Lanzhou government published the news about the benzene-contaminated water from the media and the entire city was moved in an emergence state.
From what happened after the incident， we can see that the government’s responses and deeds were not bad. Then，let’s reverse the clock a bit further to see what happened before the reception of the report.
At 2：00 of April 11， Veolia Lanzhou found that the water flowing into the No. 4 pipe from its No.1 and No. 2 plants had the benzene content exceed 200 mg per liter， 20 times as high as the national standard.
One hour later， the company took self-rescue measures by throwing activated carbon into the water with the hope of absorbing the contaminations. The media said that “this was a timely rescue measure”.
Actually， at 17：00 of the day before that， Veolia Lanzhou already found the extra benzene in the drinking water. At that time， the benzene content in the water reached 118 mg per liter， but Veolia did not report that and delayed the news， which was highly related to the health of people.
This action was severely criticized by the people. One day after the initial finding of the unnaturally high benzene content in drinking water， one governmental leader asked Veolia Lanzhou how they monitored the water quality. Yao Xin， board chairman of Veolia Lanzhou， said： “Our workers detected the oil stains on the water surface and then took some sample for test， from which we found the high content of benzene.
Here came the question. Since the government has promised to report the water quality conditions on a daily basis， why the problem was not reported on the day when the excessive benzene content was found.
To know the answer， we need to look at what happened a month ago.
At the beginning of March， there were citizens in Lanzhou reporting to the government that “intense and strange odor was smelt in the water， rendering the water unsuitable for drinking.”
On March 8， the environmental protection department of Lanzhou announced that a united research it sponsored with the health center and Veolia Lanzhou detected no problem in the water. “Everything is OK，” the report said.
It was also on that day that the government promised a daily report on water quality. But definitely， they failed to keep the promise.
The unfulfilled promise triggered the dissatisfaction of the public. Even though the crisis has ended， there are still a lot of questions and complaints found online. Most people were unpleased not only by the unfulfilled promise， but also the one-day delay of the report about the contamination. In addition， there was no official report about the connection between the benzene incident with the “strange odor” in water a month before.
Actually， the report about water quality released on March 8 included all monitored items， such as the contents of permanganate， nitrate， ammonia， chloride， bacteria， microbes and so on， but there is no available data on the contents of benzene or related products.
Question Foreign-controlled Water Supply
On the morning of April 12， Yan Zhijian， Vice Mayor of Lanzhou， said in a press conference that the source of the contamination might come from the pipes petrochemical companies laid out besides the water pipeline.
The petrochemical companies Yan Zhijian referred to were actually the subsidiary companies of China National Petroleum Corp. （CNPC） in Lanzhou. “There were four water pipelines contaminated by the materials from the petrochemical companies. They are the culprits of the unnaturally high content of benzene，” said Yan Zijiang， head of the environmental protection department of Lanzhou.
But soon the spokesman for CNPC in Hangzhou denied the company’s ties to the contamination and refused to give out any comments. Along with the state-owned enterprise’s denial， the officials of Lanzhou， as well as their superiors of Gansu， seemed to be unconvinced of this conclusion too.
On the morning of April 13， the environmental protection department of Lanzhou announced through its counterpart of publicity that “various investigations and researches have provided solid proofs that the benzene contamination was cause by the oil stains around the pipelines. But we found that all the facilities that might leak the contaminations were run well. Therefore， we have to make more intensive and indepth researches to confirm the source of contaminations”.
This statement once again put the source of contaminations into the mist. For this， Prof Wang Jinshen from Beijing Normal University， who was also a member of the research team of this incident， said to the media that the benzene， based on the initial survey， might come from the contaminations that penetrated into and stayed underground during the leaking incident of Lanzhou Petrochemical in the 1980s.
According to Prof. Wang， the drinking water of Lanzhou came from the Yellow. Veolia Lanzhou， the supplier of water for this city， built a 3-km pipeline between its No. 1 and No. 2 plants. The water flow through the pipeline is the same with the Yellow River from west to east. Lanzhou Petrochemical’s factory is just located on the south of the pipeline.
This company went through a leakage incident in the 1980s， in which some organic substances infiltrated into below the ground and sank increasingly deeper along with the underground water. The pipeline was buried four to five meters below the ground and cut through the flow of the underground water. Some underground water was stopped by the pipeline and formed a retention basin of underground water by the pipeline. According to Prof. Wang， the benzene-contaminated underground water infiltrated into the pipeline from this retention basin.
The directors of Lanzhou Petrochemical did not deny this saying. “It is reasonable yet we need more proofs，” said one of them.
It is known that Lanzhou Petrochemical’s predecessor General Oil Refinery Factory of Lanzhou did build a small petrochemical factory in the nearby place of the site of the water supply factory. However， this small factory has been closed for almost 30 years.
Since the identity of the contamination contributor is hard to be confirmed in a short while. People who are in need of finding someone responsible for the incident altered the target of fire to the water supplier.
One solid and unavoidable question is： how did the contaminations penetrate into the water pipeline？
“The pipeline is definitely outdated. Why don’t you use the steelmade pipeline to fulfill the task？” a governmental official of Gansu asked Veolia Lanzhou.
Apart from the old devices， when the water supply for the pipeline between the No. 1 and No. 2 factories was cut off， the rescue team once put forward an idea of digging out the entire area of the pipeline to find the source of contaminations. However， this idea was rejected by the directors of Veolia Lanzhou. “This is not feasible， because there are a lot of residential houses built above the pipeline，” they said.
It would be almost impossible to believe that the water that supports the life and production of three million people in a city has half of the volume transported through a cement-made pipeline buried two or three meters below a lot of residential houses had there been no benzene contaminations.
Veolia Lanzhou’s Yao Xin said to Yu Haiyan that the“contaminations got into the pipeline after dissolving the substances filling the settlement joint of the pipeline”.
To this explanation， the CPC chief’s dissatisfaction and anger were easy to see. “This incident reflected the big and undetected problem in the water supply system of our city，”he scolded.
It is known that there have been a lot of questions thrown at Veolia. A retired official of Lanzhou still held grudges against the deal of selling the water supply business of this city to the French company. “At that time， the total project was worth almost 3 billion yuan. We sold it to Veolia with 1.71 billion yuan. Even though it was given 45% of the shares， it had veto power in the operation.”
In addition to that， Veolia failed to fulfill the promise of reconstructing and upgrading the water supply pipelines and systems. The citizens of Lanzhou did not drink the water of“French quality” and the quality was even worse than before. The joint cooperation also increased the water price in the seven years after the joint investment， the water price increased fourfold.
France-based Veolia is one of the three largest water supply companies in the world. It has a huge presence in China as about 27 million urban citizens of this country live on the water supplied by Veolia. However， its ability and responsibility did not keep up with its fame and size. In recent years， Veolia was reported to be related to the several water safety incidents.
On April 12， Yu Han said through TV to the entire city of Lanzhou： “Having no alternative water source is a huge threat against the water safety for people. This case should be a warning for us， reminding us of looking further and broader in the future. We need to coordinate with all parties in this matter to figure out a feasible and efficient solution to water quality for our people.”