Environment

Yellow River, China Contaminated by Diesel Spill

by Barbara McPherson | January 4, 2010 at 01:28 pm

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An environmental disaster is unfolding on the Yellow River in China which is currently being contaminated by a large diesel spill. The Yellow River is the second longest river in China and an important source of drinking water as well as supplying irrigation water and industries. It is already one of the most heavily polluted rivers of the world. Now there are orders out to stop using the river water until the diesel can be removed or is flushed out to sea.

The public-health scare began last Wednesday when diesel started gushing into the Wei River, a tributary of the Yellow River in northern China, from a ruptured pipeline operated by China National Petroleum Corp.

Over the weekend, workers threw 17 floating dams across the Wei to block the toxic diesel. But scientists discovered diesel traces in a reservoir behind a dam in Sanmenxia, a city about 100 kilometers downstream from the point where the Wei joins the Yellow River, an official in the Henan provincial environmental protection bureau said Monday.

A small army of workers were sent to the Wei River which flows into the Yellow to try to stop the more than 150 000 litres of diesel oil from flowing into the source of drinking water for millions of Chinese. Efforts included placing dams across the Wei River to prevent the escape of the diesel oil. Some has now been detected in the Yellow River, 100 kilometres downstream from the Wei River, necessitating a closure of an important hydro-electric dam.
The leak occurred in a pipeline run by the state.
Diesel fuel is toxic to humans. Ingestion of even small quantities can be fatal. Exposure to lungs and skin may result in increased chance of cancers.