Water crsis in Tai Lake 太湖水危机 digest from Newyork Times
ZHOUTIE, China — Lake Tai, the center of China’s ancient “land of fish and rice,” succumbed this year to floods of industrial and agricultural waste.
周铁，中国——太湖，中国古代“鱼米之乡”的中心，遭受了今年洪水般的工业和农业废水的蹂躏。
This is the third in a series of articles and multimedia examining the human toll, global impact and political challenge of China's epic pollution crisis.Environmental activist Wu Lihong with petitions against pollution.
这是第三次在一系列的文章和媒体调查中的警钟，具有全球影响和政治挑战中国大规模的污染危机。环境主义者Wu Lihong请求应对污染问题。
Toxic cyanobacteria, commonly referred to as pond scum, turned the big lake fluorescent green. The stench of decay choked anyone who came within a mile of its shores. At least two million people who live amid the canals, rice paddies and chemical plants around the lake had to stop drinking or cooking with their main source of water.
有毒蓝藻，通常也被称为绿藻，使太湖整个湖体成为荧光绿色。腐烂的恶臭令任何走近湖畔一英里的人都感到窒息。至少有两百万人住在运河区，周围的水稻田和化工厂都不得不停止使用他们的主水源来饮用和做饭。
The outbreak confirmed the claims of a crusading peasant, Wu Lihong, who protested for more than a decade that the region’s thriving chemical industry, and its powerful friends in the local government, were destroying one of China’s ecological treasures.
（蓝藻的）爆发证实了吴立红Wu Lihong，为此抗议了十多年的农民斗士的断言，地区中繁荣的化工业和它在当地政府中强力的朋友联手破坏了这个中国生态财产之一的湖区。
Mr. Wu, however, bore silent witness. Shortly before the algae crisis erupted in May, the authorities here in his hometown arrested him. In mid-August, with a fetid smell still wafting off the lake, a local court sentenced him to three years on an alchemy of charges that smacked of official retribution.
然而，吴先生，烦人的沉默的证人。在五月的藻类危机爆发的不久之前，被他家乡的当地政府逮捕了。在八月中旬，湖面上仍然飘散着恶臭，当地政府指控他犯有煽动罪判了三年监禁，这有点像公报私仇。
Pollution has reached epidemic proportions in China, in part because the ruling Communist Party still treats environmental advocates as bigger threats than the degradation of air, water and soil that prompts them to speak out.
污染在中国已经成为大范围的问题，部分因为执政的共产党仍然视环境主义者为比促使他们大声疾呼的空气和水土退化更为严重的威胁。
Senior officials have tried to address environmental woes mostly through pulling the traditional levers of China’s authoritarian system: issuing command quotas on energy efficiency and emissions reduction; punishing corrupt officials who shield polluters; planting billions of trees across the country to hold back deserts and absorb carbon dioxide.
高官们试图主要通过中国集权体制的传统手段来应对环境灾难：推出节能减排的强制性指标；惩罚庇护污染者的贪腐官员；在全国种植数以亿计的树木来阻挡沙漠和吸收二氧化碳。
But they do not dare to unleash individuals who want to make China cleaner. Grass-roots environmentalists arguably do more to expose abuses than any edict emanating from Beijing. But they face a political climate that varies from lukewarm tolerance to icy suppression.
但是他们不敢释放那些希望中国更加清洁的个人。草根环境保护份子事实上比北京发布的任何法令都更多地揭露了这些弊端。但是他们面对的一个与淡漠宽容的政治氛围不同的是冷漠的镇压。
Fixing the environment is, in other words, a political problem. Central party officials say they need people to report polluters and hold local governments to account. They granted legal status to private citizens’ groups in 1994 and have allowed environmentalism to emerge as an incipient social force.
恢复生态环境，换句话说，是政治问题。党中央的官员说他们需要人们告发污染者和要求当地政府加强重视。他们在1994年给民间公民组织批准合法地位，允许环境保护主义者形成基本的社会力量。
But local officials in China get ahead mainly by generating high rates of economic growth and ensuring social order. They have wide latitude to achieve those goals, including nearly complete control over the police and the courts in their domains. They have little enthusiasm for environmentalists who appeal over their heads to higher-ups in the capital.
但是中国地方官员取得晋升主要基于高经济增长率和确保社会秩序。他们有很大的言论权去达成这些目标，包括他们辖区内警力和法庭几乎完全的控制。他们对于越过他们头顶直接向首都上级领导上访的环保主义者很是反感。
Mr. Wu, a jaunty, 40-year-old former factory salesman, pioneered a style of intrepid, media-savvy environmental work that made Lake Tai, and the hundreds of chemical factories on its shores, the focus of intense regulatory scrutiny.
吴先生，一个踌躇满志的人，40岁的前工厂销售员，无畏的先驱，，并懂得如何跟媒体合作，结果使太湖和湖边上百家化工厂成为媒体和政府监察的焦点。（使太湖和它岸边化工厂的环境保护工作为媒体熟知的人，成了限制审查的对象。）
In 2005 he was declared an “Environmental Warrior” by the National People’s Congress. His address book contained cellphone numbers for officials in Beijing and the provincial capital of Nanjing who outranked the party bosses where he lived.
在2005年他被人民代表大会宣称为“环境斗士”。他的电话簿上有北京官员和在南京的江苏省政府官员的手机号码，他们的官职都远高于他家乡的官员。
But Mr. Wu was far from untouchable. He lost his job. His wife lost hers. The police summoned, detained and interrogated him. The local government and factory owners also tried for years to bring him into the fold with contracts, gifts and jobs. When party officials offered him a chance to profit handsomely from a pollution cleanup contract, a friend warned him not to accept. Mr. Wu, who needed the money, said yes.
但吴立洪先生远不是不受管制的。他丢了他的工作，他的妻子也是。警察传唤，拘留和审讯了他。当地政府和工厂主多年来也谋划用合同、礼物和工作把他投入陷阱。当地党的官员提供了他一个从污染治理合同中体面地挣钱的机会，他的一个朋友警告他不要接受。但是非常需要钱的吴先生答应了。
Lake of Plenty
资源丰富的湖
The country’s third largest freshwater body, Lake Tai, or Taihu in Chinese, has long provided the people of the lower Yangtze River Delta with both their wealth and their conception of natural beauty.
中国第三大淡水体系——太湖，长期为人们和长江下游地区提供财富资源和对自然美的观念。
It nurtured a bounty of the “three whites,” white shrimp, whitebait and whitefish, and a freshwater crustacean delicacy called the hairy crab. Natural and man-made streams irrigated rice paddies, and a network of canals ferried that produce far and wide.
它养育了大量的“三白”，白虾，银鱼和白鲑，和一种称为毛蟹的甲壳类美味佳肴。天然和人造的小河灌溉了稻田，运河水系提供了更为丰富的航运摆渡。
Along the lake’s northern reaches, near the city of Wuxi, placid waters and misty hills captured the imagination of Chinese for hundreds of years. The wealthy built gardens that featured the lake’s wrinkled, water-scarred limestone rocks set in groves of bamboo and chrysanthemum.
沿湖的北岸靠近无锡，平静的水面和烟雾笼罩的山是几百年来中国人的想像中的美好画面。富人以褶皱的、水磨穿的石灰石来建造庭院，把太湖石置放在竹林和菊花丛中。
Since the 1950s, however, Lake Tai has been under assault. The authorities constructed dams and weirs to improve irrigation and control floods, disrupting the cleansing circulation of fresh water. Phosphates and other pollution-borne nutrients made the lake eutrophic, sucking out oxygen that fish need to survive.
Even in its degraded state, Lake Tai made an ideal habitat for China’s chemical industry, which expanded prolifically in the 1980s. Chemical factories consume and discharge large quantities of water, which the lake provided and absorbed. Its canals made it easy to ship goods to the big industrial port city of Shanghai, downstream.
但是自从1950年代以来，太湖开始遭受侵袭。当地政府修筑了水坝和围堰来加强灌溉和控制洪水，中断了湖水的自净循环。磷酸盐和其它污染性和营养物质使湖水富营养化，吸掉了大量鱼赖以生存的氧气。即使在它退化的状态下，太湖成了在1980年代剧烈扩张的中国化工业理想的繁衍地。化工厂消耗和排放了太湖的大量的水。它的运河使用船装运货物到下游的大工业城市上海更为方便。
With strong local government support, the northern arc of Lake Tai became home to 2,800 chemical plants, most of them small cinder-block factories that took over rice paddies beside canals.
由于当地政府的强力支持，太湖北部湾成了2800家化工厂的基地，它们大部分都是小化工小煤砖厂，占据了运河边的许多稻田。
Mr. Wu’s hometown alone had 300 such plants. His narrow village road was reinforced with concrete to withstand the weight of cargo trucks. Factories here made food additives, solvents and adhesives.
吴先生的家乡就有300个这样的工厂。他狭长的村公路被混凝土加固来承载运货卡车的重量。这里的工厂制造食品添加剂，溶剂和胶粘剂。
The industry transformed the economy. By the mid-1990s, taxes on chemical industry profits accounted for four-fifths of local government revenue, according to a report from the city of Yixing, which oversees Zhoutie.
工业改变了经济。根据一份检查周铁的宜兴市的报告，到1990年代中期，化工业的缴税总计达当地政府收入的五分之四。
Mr. Wu benefited as well. In his early 20s, he got a salaried job as salesman for a factory that made soundproofing material. It allowed him to travel around the country, and paid nice commissions on his sales. His wife, Xu Jiehua, made dyes.
吴先生也由此获益。在他20出头的时候，他在一家制造隔音材料的工厂做销售员的工作。这使他周游全国，从他的销售中获得可观的提成。他的妻子许洁华制造染料。
Mr. Wu took long walks after dinner. The acrid tinge in the cool night air was the smell of prosperity to some locals. But it nauseated him, Mr. Wu recalled in later interviews.
吴先生在晚饭后散步了很久。夜晚的冷空气中的辛辣气味是当地繁荣的气息。但是这让他作呕，吴先生在后来的会见中回忆到。
In streams where he and Ms. Xu played as children, teeming whitefish used to tickle their legs. By the early 1990s, there were no fish in the streams, which ran black and red. “Rivers of blood,” Ms. Xu quoted him as saying.
在吴先生夫妇儿时玩耍的溪流中，数量丰富的白鲑经常挠他们双腿。到了1990年初期，溪水中已经没有鱼了，水变得又黑又红。“河在流血”，吴先生引用他自己的话说。
Mr. Wu is small and pudgy. Ms. Xu calls him “little fatty.” He also has a short temper, and pollution sparked it.
吴先生比较矮胖，吴太太叫他“小胖子”。他的脾气也不太好，污染使他更加暴躁了。
“In the beginning I didn’t understand it myself,” he recalled years later in an interview with Farmers’ Daily. “It was my personality that decided all of this. I felt the burden getting bigger.”
“一开始我自己并没有认识到它，”他在与农民的会面的几年后回忆道，“一旦决定了就不回头是我的个性，我感到担子更重了。”
He began by snapping photos of factories dumping untreated effluent into canals. He mailed them, anonymously at first, to environmental protection agencies.When that produced few results, he signed the letters and included his phone number, volunteering to help inspectors see the problem for themselves.Local regulators ignored him. But fish kills, declining rice yields and slumping tourism to the once pristine area made Lake Tai’s ecology a broader concern. Higher-ranking officials in Nanjing, capital of Jiangsu Province, got in touch.
他开始把工厂向运河排放没有处理的污水拍成照片，匿名寄给环保局。当这没有结果以后，他在信上签了名并且加上了他的电话号码，志愿帮助监察者发现问题。当地的管理者没有理睬他。但是鱼的死亡，稻米产量的下降和旅游业的下降使这个一度质朴的地区与太湖的生态息息相关。北京的高层和江苏省会南京开始进入调查。
One evening, Mr. Wu brought provincial inspectors to see concealed pipes running from a factory near his home to a stream that flowed into the lake. The factory, Feida Chemical, got slapped with a fine, and Mr. Wu got his start.
一天晚上，吴先生带着省监察人员察看被一家工厂埋在他家附近的隐蔽处的管道，正在向河水里排污流向湖里。菲达化工厂受到了罚款的处罚，吴先生从此开始了他的斗争。
Friends and Enemies朋友与敌人
Mr. Wu’s farmhouse filled up with the evidence he amassed, a bit haphazardly, of a looming environmental disaster. He used his pantry to store plastic bottles containing muddy water samples from streams and canals. Near his queen-size bed he kept stacks of newspaper clippings and photographs, letters and petitions.
吴先生的农舍放满了他收集的证据，逼近的环境灾难中有些偶然。他用他的食品室来储藏含有从河流和运河里采集的含有污水样本的塑料瓶。在他大号的床边存放了大堆的新闻剪报和照片，新建和申诉状。
One letter from local farmers described how a nearby factory making 8-hydroxyquinoline, used as a deodorant and antiseptic, emitted noxious fumes that “make our days and nights impassable.” Another writer referred to a local factory as “a new Unit 731,” after the Japanese team that conducted chemical warfare experiments in World War II. Members of another group said they did not dare tend their rice paddies without wearing gloves and galoshes because irrigation water caused their skin to peel off.
在一封信中当地农民描述了附近一个用偏苯三酚制造除臭剂和防腐剂的工厂如何排放有害气体，使得他们感到“日子一天也没有办法过了。”另一个作者把当地的一家工厂说成了“一支新的731部队”，那是二战中进行化学战实验的日本部队。另一群成员说他们不敢没有穿着手套和胶鞋就下田照看他们的水稻，因为灌溉的水使得他们掉皮。
Mr. Wu answered many such calls for help. Between 1998 and 2006, the environmental protection agency of Jiangsu Province recorded receiving 200 reports of pollution incidents and regulatory violations from Mr. Wu.
吴先生回了很多求助信，在1998到2006年间，江苏省的环保局记录从吴先生处收到了200份污染事件和违反规定的报告。
Many of those he helped became allies. But Mr. Wu was making as many enemies as friends.“Our society lacks the right atmosphere for environmental protection,” he told one local newspaper. “Even in areas where pollution is most severe, I still have a hard time winning people’s support.”
他帮助的许多人后来成为了同盟，但是吴先生使很多敌人成为了朋友。“我们的社会缺乏对环境保护的良好氛围，”他告诉当地一家报纸，“即使污染在区域里是最严重的，我仍会用大量的时间来赢得人们的支持。”
Some residents feared for their jobs, with good reason. The soundproofing factory fired Mr. Wu in 1999. His notice of dismissal, which he saved among his other papers, cited his failure to attend a meeting.
很多居民担心他们的工作是有道理的。隔音材料的工厂在1999年解雇了吴先生。他收集的解雇通知里说他没有参加一个会议。
His family lived off his wife’s salary at the dye factory for a time. Then one day Ms. Xu mentioned to Mr. Wu how the stream near her factory changed colors depending on which dye they made that day. Mr. Wu brought a television crew to film the rainbow-colored stream. Ms. Xu soon lost her job as well.“He did not always have our family’s happiness at heart,” Ms. Xu recalled. “He probably should have investigated someone else’s factory.”Such pressure, though, made him confront local authorities more directly.
他的家庭靠他妻子在染料厂里的收入维持生活了一段时间。但是有一天吴太太向吴先生提到她附近的工厂是如何以彩虹色的水改变了河流的颜色。吴太太很快也丢了她的工作。“他并不总关心我们家庭的快乐”，吴太太回忆道，“可能他应该调查其它的工厂。”
In 2001, Wen Jiabao, then a vice premier, now China’s prime minister, came to investigate reports of Lake Tai’s deterioration. Like most Communist Party inspection tours, word of this one reached local officials in advance. When Mr. Wen asked to see a typical dye plant, one was made ready, according to several people who witnessed the preparations.
2001年当时的副总理温家宝，现在的中国总理，来调查太湖恶化的报告。像许多共产党的视察一样，当地官员预先就得到了这个风声。当温总理要求查看一家典型的染料厂时，一家被几个人目击到的有准备的厂被安排好了。
The factory got a fresh coat of paint. The canal that ran beside it was drained, dredged and refilled with fresh water. Shortly before Mr. Wen’s motorcade arrived, workers dumped thousands of carp into the canal. Farmers were positioned along the banks holding fishing rods. Mr. Wen spent 20 minutes there. A picture of him shaking hands with the factory boss hangs in its lobby.
工厂被打扮上了新的外衣，旁边流过的运河被排干了，挖掘过并且重新注入了干净的水。就在温总理的车队到达前，工人们往河里倾倒了数以千计的鲤鱼。农民们被安排在河边用鱼竿钓鱼。温总理在那里待了20分钟，一张温总理和工厂老板握手的照片就被放在了大厅里。
Mr. Wu fired off an angry letter to Beijing recounting the ruse and warning the vice premier that he had been “deceived.” Mr. Wu circulated copies among his friends. Local officials saw it, too. Several villagers said they were warned then that they should keep a distance from Mr. Wu.
吴先生火冒三丈地些了一封信给北京叙述这个诡计并且告知副总理他被欺骗了。吴先生复制了很多份在他的朋友们中流传，当地政府也看到了。一些村民说他们被警告离吴先生远一点儿。
Words From Above
One summer afternoon in 2002, Mr. Wu went out on an errand and saw a banner stretched across the main road downtown. It read: “Warmly welcome the police to arrest Wu Lihong for committing blackmail in the name of environmentalism.”
2002夏天的一个下午，吴先生出差看到一个标语在镇上的公路上横挂着。上面写着：“热烈欢迎警察逮捕以环保名义写黑信的吴立宏。”
Mr. Wu told friends he initially suspected that the banner was hung by local factory bosses to intimidate him. But when he went to the police to complain, he found a stack of placards with the same exhortation in the police station. The police had erected the banner themselves, and they detained him on the spot.
吴先生最初怀疑横幅是当地工厂的老板挂出来胁迫他的。但是当他走到警察局控诉时，他发现一堆同样内容的布告张贴张派出所里。警察自己挂的横幅，他们当场就拘留了他。
His family received a detention notice accusing Mr. Wu of inciting farmers to stage a public protest about pollution a few weeks earlier. The notice did not mention blackmail, as the banner had, and the police never pressed charges. He was released within two weeks.
他家里收到一张拘留通知，指控吴先生几星期前煽动农民举行针对污染的公众抗议。通知上没有提到横幅上写的黑信，警方也未加以指控。他在两个星期之内被释放了。
That episode appeared to be part of an inconsistent, somewhat bumbling effort to keep Mr. Wu boxed up and harmless.
这个插曲看起来是矛盾的一部分，有点像笨拙的使吴先生困住和失去危险的努力。
There were carrots as well as sticks. Zhang Aiguo, the chief environmental regulator in the city of Yixing, struck up a dialogue with Mr. Wu, several friends said.
有胡萝卜也有大棒。宜兴市环境官员张爱国和吴先生进行了一次谈话，几个朋友说。
Hang Yaobin, a truck driver and sundry shop owner in Zhoutie who has also pressed for better environmental controls, said Mr. Zhang told Mr. Wu that they could improve the environment together. But Mr. Wu should expose problems in other jurisdictions and should stop damaging Yixing’s reputation.
杭尧斌，一位周铁的卡车司机和百货商店店主也同样受到过环境的控制，说张先生告诉吴先生他们能够一起改善环境。但是吴先生应该在管辖的范围内揭露问题并且要停止损害宜兴的声誉。
“Zhang Aiguo told him: ‘Don’t make me stink, or I’ll lose my job. Then we’ll accomplish nothing,’” Mr. Hang said.In a telephone interview, Mr. Zhang declined to discuss his dealings with Mr. Wu in detail. But he acknowledged that the two talked regularly before he was assigned to another position in the Yixing government.
“张爱国告诉他：‘不要让我为难，否则我也要丢掉我的工作。那样我们什么也做不了，’”杭先生说。在一次电话采访中，张先生拒绝谈论他和吴先生谈话的细节。在他承认两人谈得很有原则，在他被调到宜兴政府的其它职位之前。
In 2003, Mr. Zhang offered Mr. Wu a business opportunity. A steel plant in Zhoutie had been ordered by environmental authorities to buy new dust-control equipment. Mr. Wu could find a vendor for the equipment and earn a handsome commission, several people told about the arrangement said.Mr. Zhang confirmed that he told Mr. Wu of the opportunity.
2003年，张先生给了吴先生一个生意上的机会。周铁的一家钢厂被环境部门强制要购买新的控制尘土设备。吴先生可以找一家卖设备的卖主并赚一笔可观的佣金。
Mr. Wu debated whether to accept. Mr. Hang said he advised his friend against it. “If you’re engaged in a confrontation with officials you can’t gamble, or visit prostitutes, or have any other vice,” Mr. Hang said. “They are always looking for ways to get you.”
吴先生与杭先生争辩是否接受他朋友的建议拒绝接受。“如果你已经参加了和官员的对抗你就不能赌博，嫖妓，或者其它任何不良嗜好，”杭先生说：“他们总是在找方法整倒你。
But this contract involved an environmental cleanup. And with both Mr. Wu and his wife out of work, they needed money. Mr. Wu agreed to contact a vendor recommended by Mr. Zhang.
但是这个合同涉及到一项环保收益。由于吴先生夫妇都没有工作，他们需要钱。吴先生同意联系张先生推荐的卖主。
It was not a rewarding endeavor. He brokered a contract. But the dust-control company gave him only a token advance on his promised commission. The steel plant boss, who had befriended Mr. Wu, eventually withheld part of what he owed the dust-control company to compensate Mr. Wu, according to Ms. Xu, his wife.
这不是一个有回报的努力。他代理了这个合同。但是扬尘抑制公司给了他仅仅给了他许诺的委托中象征性的预付款。曾待友善地对待他的钢铁厂的老板，最终拒付了他欠扬尘控制公司的部分来补偿吴先生，据她的妻子说。
That was one of several muddled interactions with local officials and businessmen that did not satisfy either side. Mr. Wu remained cash-strapped. He did not stop contacting Nanjing and Beijing about pollution problems.
这是几个与当地官员和商人混乱的互动之一，让两头都不能满意。吴先生依旧身无分文。他没有停止就污染问题和南京与北京方面的接触。
In 2005, he heard that the local government would be the host of a big delegation of Chinese reporters as part of the China Environmental Century Tour. He got in touch with China Central Television, the leading national broadcaster, and promised to reveal the story behind the story.
在2005年，他听说当地政府成为一个大型中国记者代表团的东道主，作为中华环保世纪行的一部分，承诺揭露故事背后的故事。
He arranged covertly for the reporters to inspect a section of the Caoqiao River that he learned the government planned to show them on the coming tour. He revealed hidden pipes that discharged black effluent from local factories into the river, which flows into Lake Tai.
他偷偷安排了记者视察了漕桥河的一段，他知道政府计划在将来的形成中会向他们展示。他揭露出了隐藏的管道，从当地工厂向河水泻出黑色污水并且流向太湖。
The China Central Television crew later joined the Potemkin official tour. They aired a special report on “the river that goes from black to clear overnight.”
中国中央电视台人员随后参加了万里行官方行程。他们制作了一个特别报道名为“一夜之间河水由黑变清。”
Mr. Wu was the star of that report, an environmental celebrity. Later the same year, the National People’s Congress, China’s party-run Parliament, declared him an “Environmental Warrior.”
吴先生成为了那起报道中的明星，一位环保名人。同年后期，全国人民代表大会，中国共产党运作的议会，宣称他为“环保斗士。”
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