April 12, 2006

China - Xinhua - Original Article (English)

Stephen Johnson, Admininistrator of the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency. (above)


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China's environmental authority has rejected claims by its United States counterpart that airborne mercury pollution, discharged from China's power plants and factories, are drifting over to the United States.

An official with the Chinese national State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) who declined to give his name was quoted by Thursday's China Business News as saying that the allegation is "entirely groundless."

The British newspaper, Financial Times, on April 12 cited U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) chief Stephen Johnson as saying that "China's airborne chemicals and particulate matter were being detected on both coasts of the US."

A Mercury Atom in Motion (above).


Droplets of Mercury (below). Fun to
Play With, Dangerous to Ingest.


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Zhang Jianyu, program manager for the Beijing office of Environmental Defense, a U.S.-based non-governmental organization, said, "As far as I know, Stephen Johnson has never publicly made this kind of claim."

"It's impossible to distinguish the origin of pollutants in the global atmosphere," Zhang noted.

But the allegation is not news to the Chinese, according to Zhang.

Based on his researches to determine if China's airborne pollutants could travel to the United States, Professor Daniel Jacob of Harvard University claimed in 2004 that imported pollution could degrade the atmosphere in the U.S., Zhang said.

"The claim, however, is only conjecture," Zhang said. "It is not yet a foregone conclusion."

Mercury is a highly-toxic heavy metal that does harm to the human nervous system. When it settles on land or lakes it can be ingested by animals that then flow into the human food chain.