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    World’s Largest Coal Company Leaves Chinese Community Without Water

     EcoWatch
    Jul 25, 2013 3:06AM EDT Home

    Greenpeace

    By Mahesh Prasad

    For ten years, the Chinese state-run organization Shenhua Group, the world’s biggest coal producer by volume, has sucked this land dry, exploiting water resources at a shocking scale from these beautiful grasslands to use in its coal-to-liquid project (also known as coal liquefaction, a process for producing liquid fuels from coal) and illegally dumping toxic industrial wastewater. Shenhua’s operations have sparked social unrest and caused severe ecological damage including desertification, impacting farmers and herders who are facing reduced water supplies in what was once an abundant farming area.

    [youtube //www.youtube.com/embed/nMavdhg2f2c?rel=0 expand=1]

     

    See more photos below showing the effects of the water shortage:

    Hand planted pine trees that surround the Shenhua Ordos Coal to Liquid facility have died due to lack of water.

     

    Zhang Dadi prays for rain in the middle of his corn field that he cannot irrigate in the Adaohai Number 1 Commune. He has a 150-meter deep well that he uses to irrigate his corn. Last year he planted 20 mu of land, but could only irrigate 15 mu (1 hectare). This year he planted 15 mu but could only irrigate 8 and the remaining 7 mu didnt get irrigated. The water table drops every year and it doesnt rain. Corn planted over a month ago still hasnt started to sprout. Haolebaoji, Inner Mongolia.

     

    The Shenhua coal-to-liquid project discharges waste water into the hills, letting it seep into the earth. Ordos, Inner Mongolia.

     

    Hundreds of trees that line this stream have died due to the nightly dumping of wastewater by Shenhua coal-to-liquid and chemical project.

     

    Lin Bo in attempts to get some drinking water from his dry well.

    Visit EcoWatch’s WATER pages for more related news on this topic.

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