Watching the water

Dong tests the quality of wastewater discharged from a factory with a pH test strip.

Villagers had complained to the local environmental protection bureau but did not receive any response, so Dong turned to the media for help. After the incident was exposed on the Zhejiang TV station, the chemical factory was ordered to shut down until it had qualified wastewater treatment equipment.

It was no secret that companies unwilling to invest in wastewater treatment equipment would stealthily drain wastewater and the government sometimes turned a blind eye because many of these factories are major taxpayers and employers, Dong says.

Quzhou has established seven industrial development zones and is the home to the biggest fluoride chemical base in China. Municipal government statistics showed the city's chemical industry contributed 23.98 billion yuan ($3.93 billion) in production value last year.

Dong admits that environmental protection bureaus would act much quicker when the media get involved but he tries to avoid the situation because "the exposure, more or less, would embarrass local authorities while a cooperative relationship would be conducive to the cause".

In many cases, factories accumulated untreated wastewater and piped it out deep in the night or on rainy days, Dong says: "The more heavily it rains, the more important it is we take action."

Some factories transported wastewater with trucks and poured on the mountain. To collect evidence, Dong even pretended to be a doctor of traditional Chinese medicine scouting for herbs on the mountain.

Once, volunteers secretly followed a truck and took photos to record how untreated wastewater was poured on a nearby mountain. They were discovered by the factory's security guards, who confiscated their camera. Luckily, Dong had taken out the memory card before the guards took the camera.

Dong was fully equipped to look for hidden outlets: He had a camera for collecting visual evidence, a flashlight for night patrols, insect repellent used in some pollution outlets and long rubber boots because he often had to wade through polluted water, and most importantly, the pH test strips.

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