土壤污染是中國的棘手問題 Ground operation

The chemicals warehouse explosions in the port city of Tianjin last month reached straight into Yan Hongmei’s apartment, fracturing her mother’s pelvis when a window frame crashed on to her bed. A few days later, rain sprinkled the city with foamy yellowish flecks. The day after that, thousands of dead fish turned riverbanks into a silvery-white mass.

上月發生在中國港口城市天津的化學品倉庫爆炸，直接波及顏紅梅的公寓，窗框掉在她母親的牀上，砸折了母親的盆骨。幾天後，雨後的天津出現黃色泡沫斑點。次日，數千條死魚將一大片河岸染成銀白色。

“They say there are no problems now, but what about the future? What if our children will be affected down the road?” she said as she begged officials to buy her home. “We are afraid of the pollution posed by chemicals. Even though they say there is no pollution and it is safe, we still believe pollution exists.”

“他們說目前沒有問題，但是以後呢？如果我們的孩子將來受到影響怎麼辦？”在請求政府回購其住房時，顏紅梅稱，“我們擔心化學品造成的污染。即使他們說現在沒有污染、現在是安全的，我們仍然認爲存在污染。”

The fallout in Tianjin — from air, to water, to soil — is mirrored in industrial pollution across China. The thick smog that blocks the sun and causes hospital admissions to rise, often dubbed the “smog-ocalypse”, makes headlines worldwide. Rivers sometimes inexplicably turn red, plagues of dead fish can materialise overnight and algae blooms turn lakes bright green.

天津事件產生的衝擊波——從空氣、水、到土壤——反映了整個中國的工業污染問題。遮天蔽日的濃霧造成入院就診人數上升，併成爲世界各地的新聞頭條，常被冠以“末日之霧”(smog-ocalypse)的稱號。有時河流會不明原因地泛紅，死魚疫情可能在一夜間出現，或者藻類將湖水變爲翠綠色。

But soil pollution — invisible, its effects lingering long after the original polluter is gone — may be the thorniest problem of them all.

但是，土壤污染可能是最爲棘手的污染。這種污染是看不見的，在初始污染源消失後，其影響還會持續很久。

Faced with public discontent, Beijing has started to address air pollution by modernising factories and moving coal-consuming industries away from cities. By 2020, many major waterways are supposed to meet new drinking water standards. Some of these remedies may be counter-productive, since moving polluting factories to the hinterlands can have the perverse effect of fouling air, soil and water closer to river sources.

面對公衆不滿，北京方面已開始通過對工廠進行現代化改造、並將燃煤工業遷至遠離城市的地方來解決空氣污染。按照規劃，到2020年很多大型水道將達到新的飲用水標準。其中一些補救措施或許會適得其反，因爲將污染工廠遷移至內陸地區可能在更接近江河源頭的地方污染空氣、土壤和水，產生反效果。

Yet the government is only now beginning to grapple with soil pollution, after years in which experts struggled to bring attention to the issue.

不過，中國政府剛剛開始應對土壤污染問題——在專家們多年呼籲關注這一問題之後。

In 2004, workers digging Beijing’s Songjiazhuang subway station were poisoned by gases leeching from an abandoned pesticide plant. That sparked China’s first regulations on decontaminating abandoned industrial sites. Recent incidents, including cyanide contamination after the Tianjin blasts, are raising public awareness.

2004年，有工人在北京宋家莊地鐵站施工時中毒，毒源爲一家廢棄農藥廠裏殘留的氣體。這導致中國首次對消除廢棄工業遺址污染工作進行監管。近來的事故，包括天津爆炸之後的氰化物污染，提高了公衆意識。

“China has entered its Love Canal era,” says Lan Hong, a professor at Renmin University’s School of Environment and Natural Resources, who is drafting a plan to finance China’s soil pollution clean-up. The 1970s discovery that the Love Canal neighbourhood near Niagara Falls was built on toxic waste led to the US “Superfund” for brownfield sites.

“中國已進入了自己的拉夫運河(Love Canal)時代，”中國人民大學環境學院副教授藍虹表示。她正在草擬一份爲中國土壤污染清理工作融資的方案。1970年代，人們發現尼亞加拉大瀑布(Niagara Falls)附近的拉夫運河社區建在堆放了有毒廢棄物的地塊上，導致美國政府建立了迫使污染企業清理場地的“超級基金”制度。

China needs Rmb7tn ($1.1tn) to clean up soil pollution, equivalent to one-third of its entire foreign exchange reserves, if it uses practices developed in the US and Japan, Ms Lan estimates. “China can’t afford it,” she says.

藍虹估計，若採用美國和日本發展的方法，那麼中國需要爲清理土壤污染投入7萬億元人民幣（約合1.1萬億美元），這個數字相當於中國外匯儲備總量的三分之一。她說，“中國花不起這麼多錢。”

The Chinese central bank estimates that the environment ministry’s targets for cleaner air and water alone require Rmb2tn a year over the next five years, although the central bank wants “green financing” to relieve government coffers. A soil pollution action plan in the works will also involve significant budget allocations during the next five-year plan from 2016-2020. Otherwise, Ms Lan says, at current spending of about Rmb40bn a year, sorting out soil pollution “will take us 1,000 years”.

中國央行估計，單單是環境部的水和空氣淨化目標就需要在未來5年內每年投入2萬億元人民幣，不過中國央行想要使用“綠色融資”來減輕國家財政壓力。一份擬議中的土壤污染治理方案也要求在2016至2010年的下一個五年計劃期間安排可觀治污預算。藍虹說，按照當前每年投入約400億元人民幣的水平，治理土壤污染“將需要1000年”。

Redevelopment concerns

重建擔憂

“Green financing” only goes so far. Investors can charge for treated wastewater, but there is little return on soil remediation. “The biggest challenge is financing. Where’s the money coming from?” one businessman says.

“綠色融資”能夠解決的問題是有限的。投資者可以對廢水處理收費，但是土壤修復沒什麼回報。“最大的問題是融資。錢從哪來？”一名商人稱。

One funding source is developers who, according to World Bank studies, should be willing to clean up contaminated urban sites to raise the value of their land. But that idea has yet to bear fruit. A special fund was created for one flagship site, the blackened former campus of Shougang Steel in Beijing, after Shougang balked at spending $800m to rehabilitate the land.

世界銀行(World Bank)的研究顯示，其中一個資金來源是房地產開發商，他們應該樂於清理受污染的城市土地，以此擡高其土地的價值。但是，這個想法尚未結出果實。有一個特殊基金爲一個標誌性場地——受污染的首鋼前北京廠區——創建，此前首鋼拒絕支出8億美元來恢復土地。

When housing has been built near reclaimed sites, there are scant profits for developers. China’s largest clean-up project to date, a former coking plant in Beijing, is ringed by low-income apartments housing Beijingers forced out of historic hutong neighbourhoods. Bitter residents spend three times their subsidised rent on bottled water.

當改造過的場地附近建造住宅後，開發商的利潤不足。中國迄今最大的清潔項目——北京一個前焦化廠的廠區——如今被低收入住宅區環繞，居民是被迫離開歷史悠久的衚衕社區的北京人。如今，這些不滿的居民掏出三倍於房租補貼的錢購買桶裝水。

Yet even if urban industrial sites do begin to sprout luxury apartments, soil pollution will still blight rust belt towns and prime farmland. “The US and Europe have a lot of brownfield sites but China is different, because a lot of its agricultural land is polluted,” says Chen Tongbin, director of the Center for Environmental Remediation at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

然而，即使豪華公寓高樓開始在城市工廠原址拔地而起，土壤污染問題仍將困擾衰敗的工業城鎮和基本農田。“美國和歐洲有很多棕地（brownfield，待重新開發的城市用地——譯者注），但是中國的國情不同，因爲中國連很多農業用地都被污染了，”中科院(Chinese Academy of Sciences)環境修復中心(Center for Environmental Remediation)主任陳同斌稱。

Despite the challenges China faces in cleaning up its soil, some give it credit for doing far more than most other developing economies. The former Soviet Union is full of abandoned industrial sites while pollution from mining and factory waste is a growing problem in Africa and Asia.

儘管中國在清理土壤的問題上面臨挑戰，但是一些人對於中國比其他多數發展中經濟體做得更多給予肯定。前蘇聯滿是廢棄的工業廠址，而採礦業和鋼廠廢棄物造成的污染正成爲非洲和亞洲日益嚴重的問題。

“The country that’s furthest along in all this is China. The steps they have taken are far beyond any other country outside of the west,” says Rich Fuller, president of soil remediation specialists Pure Earth.

“在所有這些問題當中，走得最遠的就是中國。他們採取的措施遠多於其它任何非西方的國家，”專業從事土壤修復的Pure Earth公司總裁裏奇富勒(Rich Fuller)表示。

Beginning in the 1950s, central planners built heavy industrial plants deep in the countryside. Winds and rain carried black smoke and dust into surrounding towns. Worse, irrigation canals distributed wastewater from mines and smelters into fields miles away. When economic reforms kicked off in the 1980, farmers over-applied pesticides and fertiliser to combat stunted yields from dead soil.

自上世紀50年代開始，中央規劃者便在遙遠的農村建造重工業工廠。大風和雨水卷攜着黑煙和灰塵進入附近的城鎮。更糟糕的是，灌溉渠把來自礦區和冶煉廠的廢水排入數英里外的田地中。當上世紀80年代經濟改革拉開帷幕後，農民過度使用殺蟲劑和化肥，以此提高貧瘠土地的收成。

A growing recognition that soil pollution contaminates water, which in turn pollutes farmland, has forced Beijing to speed up its soil pollution plan, rather than tackling air, then water and leaving soil for last.

隨着有關方面日益認識到土壤污染會進入水中、進而污染農田，北京方面正加快土壤污染治理方案，而非先治理空氣污染、之後對付水污染、把土壤污染留在最後處理。

In 2011, Caixin magazine shocked the nation with its cover photo of a rice plant, the grain turned a silvery metallic colour. It revealed that rice from southern Hunan province, the top producer, was contaminated with cadmium.

2011年，《財新》雜誌以一張水稻的封面照片震撼了整個中國。照片中的稻米帶有銀白金屬色。這揭露了湖南省南部（大米產區）所產大米被鎘污染的情況。

The report hit a nerve with city dwellers already anxious about food safety and persistent smog. “The effects of pollution and of the misuse of agricultural inputs like pesticides and fertiliser will become the next big stage in the food safety debate,” says Xu Liqing, who researches food safety and environmental issues at Jiangnan University School of Business.

該報道觸動了城市居民的神經，他們已經爲食品安全和持續霧霾而備感焦慮。“污染以及濫用殺蟲劑和化肥等農業投入品的影響，將成爲食品安全辯論的下一個重大議題，”江南大學商學院研究食品安全和環境問題的徐立青稱。

Worried about sales of rice and other crops, Hunan’s provincial government has been vague about where exactly the contamination lies. It is not alone.

擔心大米和其他農作物銷售的湖南省政府，對具體的污染地點一直含糊其辭。這並非個案。

In 2014, China finally published a $150m national soil pollution survey from 2006-2011 that had been classified as a “state secret”. Officials and experts were “really tense” before the report’s release, one insider says, fearing it would harm agricultural trade. Hunan’s reputation for “cadmium rice” has hurt sales, many believe, even though official statistics show output has risen since the Caixin report.

2014年，中國最終公佈了斥資1.5億美元、於2006-2011年所做的全國土壤污染調查，而該調查之前被列爲“國家機密”。一名內部人士稱，報告公佈前，政府官員及專家“真的很緊張”，擔心這會有損農業貿易。很多人認爲，湖南的“鎘大米”名聲已經影響了銷售，儘管官方統計數據表明，自《財新》發表那篇報道以來，湖南的大米產量有增無減。

The findings were alarming: nearly one-fifth of arable land was contaminated. There was no indication of how the contamination was distributed, or where the hotspots are.

結果令人震驚：近五分之一的可耕種土地受到了污染。公佈內容並不包括污染的分佈情況，或者哪裏是問題最嚴重的熱點。

The fern gently spreading its fronds at Mr Chen’s office at CAS represents another hope. Phytoremediation — the use of plants to suck heavy metals from fields and paddies — promises a cheap and effective solution. It also carries risks. The crop must be burnt and buried, or the heavy metals will re-enter the soil. Rice is particularly suited to absorbing heavy metals, but what if someone sells the tainted crop?

在陳同斌的中科院辦公室裏，輕緩伸展葉子的蕨類植物提供了另一種希望。植物修復(phytoremediation)——使用植物從旱田和稻田裏吸收重金屬——有望成爲一種廉價有效的解決方案。它也帶有風險。作物必須被焚燒並掩埋，否則，重金屬將重新進入土壤。水稻尤其適合用來吸收重金屬，但有人出售被污染的大米怎麼辦？

Some badly contaminated villages are switching to ornamental crops, like flowers or saplings, that cannot be eaten. That preserves agricultural income but does not address health risks. And it cannot be applied broadly without denting food production.

有些污染嚴重的村莊轉而種植不能食用的觀賞性植物，比如花和樹苗。那種做法保留了農業收入，但並未化解健康風險。這麼做也不可能大規模推廣，否則會嚴重影響糧食產量。

Slower, cheaper options carry hidden costs. The longer it takes to treat a plot, the longer that land is idle. Even the generous cost estimates developed by Ms Lan of Renmin University do not include compensation for lost harvests.

更慢、更便宜的選項附帶隱藏的代價。處理一塊土地所需時間越長，土地的閒置時間也越長。即便中國人民大學的藍虹得出的慷慨的成本估算，也沒有包括對耕地閒置的補償。

That means that Chinese farmers might oppose removing the pollutants that are slowly seeping into their own bones and blood. Even stunted crops can be sold, and many in the countryside have no other source of income.

這意味着，中國農民或許會反對清除那些正慢慢滲入他們自己的骨骼與血液的污染物。即使長得不大的作物也可以賣出去，而許多農民沒有其他收入來源。

Relocation issues

搬遷問題

A decade ago, heavy metal concentrations in the Xiang river prompted Hunan’s government to relocate metals processors from two cities, Xiangtan and Zhuzhou, to protect drinking water in the capital, Changsha. Upstream cities like HengYang enthusiastically welcomed the factories as a boost to growth.

10年前，湘江重金屬污染促使湖南省政府將金屬加工廠遷離湘潭和株洲，以保護省會長沙的飲用水安全。衡陽等上游城市爲推動經濟增長，踊躍接納了這些工廠。

Last year, children living near one Hengyang plant tested for high levels of lead. The city pledged to move it again, to the other side of town.

去年，居住在衡陽一家工廠附近的孩子們被檢測出血鉛含量超標。衡陽市政府承諾要再次搬遷這家工廠——遷到該市的另一頭。

Poisoning by lead, cadmium or other metals particularly harms the young. Riots by parents of poisoned children add social unrest to the long list of reasons for covering up the extent of soil pollution. “Access to information is currently limited for the bottom 40 per cent, who are known to be relatively more exposed to degraded or highly polluted areas than other population groups,” the World Bank wrote when it provided a $15m grant this April to clean up former pesticide factories.

鉛、鎘等金屬中毒對青少年的危害尤其大。地方政府已經有許多理由掩蓋土壤污染程度，如今又有了一條：防止中毒患兒家長鬧事引起社會不安定。世界銀行(World Bank)今年4月提供150萬美元清理原農藥企業。世行表示：“目前40%的底層民衆獲得信息有限，相較於其他人羣，這部分人更易受到退化或污染嚴重地區的危害。”

The “bottom 40 per cent” are the only people living in the village of Zhengjiang, tucked between an abandoned chemicals compound and the high levees of the Xiang river in Hunan. Crops used to die when heavy rains washed soot from the complex into the fields. Now they grow better, explains Mr Yang, a local scrap dealer, while his mentally handicapped teenage assistant grins behind him.

正江村位於湖南省境內，它夾在一座廢棄的化工廠和湘江高聳的堤壩之間，“40%的底層民衆”是該村的唯一居民。過去每逢天降暴雨，菸灰就隨着雨水滲入田地，導致農作物死亡。當地一名廢品收購商楊先生表示，現在它們長得好多了。他身後有一名十幾歲的智障少女咧嘴笑着，她是楊先生的助理。

Zhengjiang’s first plant opened in 1980. Soon 20 different processors spewed smoke into the air and fouled the river and fields. “Back then, no one cared if it was poison or not. They only wanted the money,” Mr Yang says.

1980年，正江村首家工廠開業，不久後又開了20家加工廠，它們將滾滾濃煙排向空中，將工業廢水排入河流和田地。楊先生說：“那時候沒人關心它們是不是有毒。人們只想要錢。”

Eight years ago, a provincial environmental team arrived to test the village well. They were so horrified that they cemented it up. Yellow bubbles used to appear in boiling water, says a shopkeeper whose wife, daughter and baby granddaughter have stuck with bottled water ever since.

八年前，一個省級環保小組來村裏檢測水井。檢測結果令他們大爲震驚，以至將村裏的水井用水泥封了起來。當地一個店主說，以前燒開水時能看見黃色的氣泡，他妻子、女兒和外孫女一直堅持喝瓶裝水。

The chemical plants left Zhengjiang two years ago. “They went somewhere in the mountains, where people aren’t crowded up against them like here,” Mr Yang says. Remediation plans posted online by the Xiangtan government include transforming the area into a “service industry hub”. One retired village cadre was vaguely aware of plans to relocate. No one else had been told.

兩年前這家化工廠搬離了正江村。楊先生說：“它們搬到山裏去了，那兒的人不會像這兒的村民一樣合夥反對它們。”在湘江政府網上公佈的整治計劃中，有一條是將該地區轉變成“服務業中心”。只有一名退休的村幹部對搬遷計劃有模糊印象，其他人都沒聽說過。

A few months ago, the villagers noticed a team testing the ground. One said he was testing for soil pollution. Villagers have not heard anything since.

幾個月前，村民發現有一些人在檢測土地，其中一人說他們是在檢測土壤污染。村民們至今沒聽說任何下文。