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By deciding to pollute first and clean up later, cement factory owners stirred wrath in a clean corner of Yunnan Province.

Dust falls like rain, garden leaves turn from green to gray, and farmers find strange balls the size of fists in the guts of slaughtered pigs: Welcome to Huaping County, a rural corner of southwest China’s Yunnan Province where pollution from cement factories has changed lives and turned peaceful villages into scenes of violence.

On the morning of August 4, some 200 people from Huaping’s Xingquan village battled with 106 workers from the Gao Yuan Building Materials Company’s No. 6 cement factory. Six villagers were hospitalized with injuries.

The clash was triggered by fears that the factory’s former owner might renege on a promise to pay 300 yuan a year to each villager to compensate for pollution damage. The factory was slated to change owners. Six days later, the Huaping government urged factory owners to resolve the dispute by increasing payouts. The original compensation deal had been reached a year earlier to calm villagers after hundreds blocked a road, protesting factory pollution.

The dispute points to a long road ahead for environmental problems in China’s less developed regions, which are now paying a heavy price for decisions based on a popular precept: “pollute first, address the problem later.”

Modern Legacy of Pollution

With abundant coal and limestone, Huaping is among the most developed areas around the city of Lijiang, western Yunnan. Small mines flourished in the 1990s, thanks to a lack of regulation. Soon, the county became home to a dozen limestone mining enterprises, several coal mines, and a cement factory. And a legacy of pollution was born.

One villager told Caijing, “When you go out for a walk, your clothes will be covered with dust. When turning on flashlight at night, you will see dust falling like rain,” he said, adding, “There is always dust on the furniture that can never be wiped away.” Vegetables are never clean, the villager said, and dirt balls of different sizes can be found in pig bladders. “The largest are as big as a fist.”

In 2006 and ’07, villagers complained to the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) and local environmental authorities. Xie Xianheng, head of Huaping’s environment protection bureau, told Caijing that his agency “paid a lot of attention to the issue.”

To back the claim, Xie presented documents of the seven supervisory and disciplinary mandates issued against Gao Yuan. The comprised six ordered suspensions of construction, closing production lines and stopping random discharges of pollutants. The most recent included a 50,000 yuan fine.

“The factory promised to execute the orders every time,” Xie said. “But their promises were never realized.”

Gao Yuan was built near the limestone supplies at Xingquan as an offshoot of the Huaping state-owned cement factory, a well-known cement factory in Yunnan. At first, the cement factory was the most developed in Yunnan and provided jobs for villagers. Many earned much more than neighboring villagers. But the plant’s emissions control system sometimes broke down, and the village would be enveloped in dust and noise.

Privately owned Gao Yuan has a production capacity of 120,000 tons per year. It began as a state enterprise but was sold to a local mine owner Li Yuan in 2003, who in 2005 sold it to Wang Zhongqiong, a businesswoman with cement interests in Sichuan Province. Wang’s interest in Gao Yuan stems from a quota for expanding cement production by updating technology. With local government help, Gao Yuan got official permission to modernize its production and boost production capacity to 2,000 tons per day.

In 2005, fixed asset investment in China was booming. The project seemed especially promising since hydropower plants were under construction nearby. But Wang had trouble raising the necessary 150 million yuan. So the project slated for a launch at the end of 2006 was delayed until December 2008.

Meanwhile, in late 2006, Wang built two shaft kiln production lines in violation of SEPA rules. The goal was to increase regional market share. The new lines, adding 160,000 tons of capacity, were started in February 2007. The new kiln lines cost 12 million yuan. Some 8 million yuan came from Wang and 4 million from employees, including villagers. Emission controls still didn’t work, however, and tension grew between the enterprise and villagers.

A source told Caijing the factory lost money but it still had friends since “it can contribute to GDP, provide more than 370 jobs, and pay taxes of several million yuan per year. It can help encourage local economic development.”

That changed June 28, 2007, when the Yunnan provincial government decided to eliminate shaft kiln production lines to reduce resource consumption and match supply with demand. The cutback affected 47 percent of Yunnan’s cement production capacity.

Gao Yuan’s production lines were to close by June 30, 2008. A Huaping official said, “We planned to let it go on running until June 30, after we got the mandate from the provincial government.” But villagers couldn’t take any more. Representatives spoke with Wang about pollution control and compensation. As negotiations dragged on, several hundred villagers blocked the road to the factory.

Finally, after the local government intervened, Gao Yuan agreed to pay 1,800 people in six villages 300 yuan in annual compensation to tolerate the dust.

Commitment is a Debt

A Huaping official said, “If the enterprise keeps running, both parties will remain at peace for a long time.” Yet after the shaft kiln production lines were ordered to close and the factory seemed hard to live on, conflicts arose.

Since Wang was not able to invest in new technology, Huaping County tried to find a successor in the following month. Dinghua, the fourth largest coal mining enterprise in the region, eventually took over the project.

Villagers in Xingquan told reporters, “We do not care who the boss is, but whoever takes the position must meet the previous commitments.” Two of the chief concerns were the environmental compensation during the first six months and the construction of a tap water pipe network. The latter issue posed a tricky problem. Villagers said that since the previous owner, Li Yuan, was in control, the factory has been promising a piped water project for six area villages. “Li’s promise has been reported in newspapers, but he left. Wang also promised that she would solve the tap water problem, but now she is leaving too. There is no resolution yet,” said a villager.

Villagers regard the water project as a necessity, not only because of pollution but also because they need more water than they used to.  “In the past, vegetables could be cooked after one washing. But now, even if they’re washed several times, the leaves are still grey [with dust]. It also takes more water to shower or do the laundry,” said a villager.

Mining, which requires a considerable amount of water, has exacerbated shortages, and wells no longer meet the needs of villagers.

“We did not understand before, but now we know that we have to fight. Otherwise problems can never be solved,” one villager said.

On July 29, hundreds of villagers blocked the gate of the Gao Yuan factory for three days until the local government intervened. Each of the 1,800 villagers was paid 200 yuan in compensation. However, the water pipe issue was unresolved.

On August 3, villagers returned to the factory and called Wang to ask when she would resolve the issue. Wang responded by asking villagers to a discussion in the factory on the morning of August 4.

How the Conflict Turned Violent

At about 8 a.m. on that day, scores of villagers began to arrive at the factory. One witness said, “Some came to ask about the water pipes, some came to get their payments from the factory.” Villagers milled about on the grass field in front of the office building.

“The boss was not there at the moment, so we just waited,” the witness said. About an hour later, 13 trucks full of boisterous young men drew up. “We knew the truck belonged to Jin Da.”

Jin Da is a company belonging to Mao Kai, another partner of Gao Yuan. Some villagers noticed piles of rubber poles about two meters long in the truck, and they began to wonder if these were weapons.

Wang Jinbao, deputy chief of Huaping County, told reporters, “An old man went to check it out. The men in the truck began to shout obscenities at him, which drew villagers, and the two parties began to curse each other.”

At about 11:30 a.m., the quarrel deteriorated into violence. The men in the truck suddenly began to “beat us with rubber sticks,” said the witness, and six villagers fell to the ground.

Some villagers called their village head, who immediately called the police. The witness said the fight only lasted for five or six minutes and was ended by officials and police.

Amid heavy rain, a crowd of villagers blocked the only entrance to the factory, shouting “catch the perpetrators”. However, police remained in control of the building.

Agitated villagers began to smash windows in the building. They broke the windows of 13 cars and overturned the vehicles. “Someone suggested burning the building but was stopped by the head of the village,” the witness said.

“Since it’s a sensitive situation, we must try our best to maintain social stability,” said one official. As long as the villagers did not hurt anyone, police did not stop them, so as to avoid intensifying the conflict.

Petty Compensation

During the conflict, several leaders of the county government came to the spot to talk with villagers.

“Villagers urged the factory to pay for the medical fees for those injured in the protest, capture those who perpetrated the beating, and build the water pipes. In addition, each village wants 100,000 yuan to treat pollution (up from a previous plan of 80,000 yuan per village).”

“We cannot fully support their demand for pollution-treatment fees, because some of the pollution dates back a long time. Villagers cannot blame all of these problems on Wang, since she has been here for only one year and a half,” said Wang Jinbao.

After protracted negotiations, Cao Jinming, chief of the county, promised the villagers that he would punish the perpetrators “as quickly and strictly as possible,” and that he would make sure the injured were properly treated. He also dispatch a special team to hear villagers’ reports. Villagers did not leave until 5 a.m. the next day, after police detained 106 men from Jin Da for investigation.

Wang mentioned that according to the factory’s account of the incident, the 106 workers who were detained had only gathered “to have a meal of lamb…since the old factory is going to be closed.” Further, the rubber sticks were not weapons: “They were just sticks used to join straps on the coal-transporting machine.”

Villagers insisted that it had been an organized attack. “If their purpose was just to have a meal, why were there only young men in the group? Why didn’t they go to a restaurant? If they were just gathering to have a meal, why did they ask us to come and talk about the compensation on the same day?”

On the afternoon of August 10, the government of Huaping County announced a new plan: each peasant would be paid 500 yuan as compensation for the absence of the promised water pipe network. The standard for pollution compensation for the first six months would be increased to 300 yuan from 200 yuan. Each of the three most severely polluted villages would be given 100,000 yuan to address the problem.

Of the factory workers who took part in the fight, five have been identified as “key suspects.” Li Huanchao, vice chief of the local public security bureau, declared that three of the five suspects were employees of Jinda. Li told Caijing, “We will try to solve the case within 30 days.”

The Huaping environmental dispute has seemingly been resolved, yet villagers’ concerns persist.

In the past 20 years, mining eroded the soil, caused the water tables to fall and polluted the rivers – all of which had an impact on villagers’ lives. When Caijing reporters were interviewing in Huaping County, many villagers expressed their resolution. “If the factory or other coal mines or limestone mines keep on polluting the environment, we will continue to fight,” said one man.

In addition to Gao Yuan, 2006 also witnessed the construction of Lijiang Cement Co., Ltd, boasting of the largest production scale and the most advanced environmental protection technology in Lijiang. On the night of August 9, the factory was warned by villagers when some black smoke arising from their funnel, implying that villagers were alert to signs of environment pollution.

However, villagers still consider the compensation as the highest priority. Once they are compensated, villages will tolerate the pollution caused by factories.

Wang Canfa, director of the institute of environmental and resource law study of the China University of Political Science and Law in Beijing, told Caijing, “This is common in developing areas. Their sense of environmental protection is comparatively rudimentary.”

He explained that real environmental protection means preventing pollution rather than monetary compensation. Villagers will be victims if the “pollution-and-compensation” approach persists, he said.

Economic development poses another obstacle for environmental protection in rural areas. Local GDP-oriented governments tend to protect large polluters as they are also pillars of the local economy.

Xie Xianheng described his position as “powerless,” adding, “The severest measure we can adopt is to fine them. But you can neither cut their electricity, nor stop the water supply.”

Xie told Caijing that he was the chief of the local birth control bureau before working in the environmental protection bureau. He said that environmental protection is just at the beginning stage, compared with birth control. The local environmental bureau has only 16 staff, who must supervise more than 200 enterprises. Furthermore, rural areas have not even been included in the scope of supervision.