Villager on Truck Transporting Ores in China

A documentation showing the severe health impacts of heavy metal mines on the local population in Hunan province.
In May 2017, Greenpeace East Asia was informed about a case of severe soil pollution across five neighboring villages in Hunan Province, China. Hunan is China’s largest rice producer, but the province’s fertile rice paddies are interspersed with heavy metal mines, a combination that has led to dangerously high levels of soil pollution.
Yet available information about the extent of soil pollution in Hunan is limited.
Two decades of lead and zinc mining in these five villages has taken a major toll. The population of the villages, most of who are ethnically Miao, has experienced severe health impacts as a result of heavy metal exposure.
Eighty to 90 percent of the population in these five villages has kidney stones, and, each year, an average of 40 additional patients suffer from uremia, a complication of chronic kidney disease. In 2014, blood lead levels of all but one child tested in the villages exceeded the national standard.
In response, residents petitioned the local government and were seen blocking trucks heading to and from the mine to ask for compensation.
Greenpeace East Asia tested soil samples from the area. For the majority of samples, cadmium, arsenic, lead and zinc exceeded the national standard. Rice samples also tested above the national standard for chromium and lead, and, in several cases, arsenic. A more detailed breakdown of the results is available.