Canfa, Wang; Wen-xuan, Yu; Dan, Li --- "Pondering Over the Incident of Songhua River Pollution from the Perspective of Environmental Law" [2008] ELECD 352; in Faure, Michael; Ying, Song (eds), "China and International Environmental Liability" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2008)

Book Title: China and International Environmental Liability

Editor(s): Faure, Michael; Ying, Song

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781847207524

Section: Chapter 11

Section Title: Pondering Over the Incident of Songhua River Pollution from the Perspective of Environmental Law

Author(s): Canfa, Wang; Wen-xuan, Yu; Dan, Li

Number of pages: 24

Extract:

11. Pondering over the incident of
Songhua River pollution from the
perspective of environmental law
Wang Canfa, Yu Wen-xuan, Li Dan and
Li Jun-hong

1 INTRODUCTION

On 13 November 2005, an explosion occurred in Benzhydrol Factory of
Jilin Petrochemical Co Ltd in Jilin Province, China, which caused about
100 tons of benzene, nitrobenzene and other poisonous chemical materials
to leak into the part of Songhua River in Jilin City and down to the lower
breaches. The sewage discharged from this area went into the Songhua
River, mainly through the East No.10 Line of Jilin Petrochemical Co Ltd,
and resulted in a significant environmental pollution incident. The water
supply was stopped for four days in Harbin City, which brought great
difficulty to the life of millions of residents living along the river and badly
affected industrial production. The direct economic loss to Harbin city is
about RMB1.5 billion.1 Russia claimed compensation for the pollution of
its part of the river area. After the Incident, people considered some of the
facts: the attitude of the polluter, the reports and circulars giving informa-
tion on the incident, the responsibility of the relevant principals, `symbolic
litigation'2,3 brought about by citizens and experts as well as the litigation
with nature as the joint plaintiff and so on. In fact, this was not an isolated
incident. Other incidents had taken place in the last two years, e.g. the envi-
ronmental pollution incidents of Tuojiang River and Beijiang River ...