The Yellow River oil spill was an

oil spill An oil spill is the release of a liquid petroleum hydrocarbon into the environment, especially the marine ecosystem, due to human activity, and is a form of pollution. The term is usually given to marine oil spills, where oil is released into th ...

in the

Yellow River The Yellow River or Huang He (Chinese: , Standard Beijing Mandarin, Mandarin: ''Huáng hé'' ) is the second-longest river in China, after the Yangtze River, and the List of rivers by length, sixth-longest river system in the world at th ...

Shaanxi Shaanxi (alternatively Shensi, see #Name, § Name) is a landlocked Provinces of China, province of China. Officially part of Northwest China, it borders the province-level divisions of Shanxi (NE, E), Henan (E), Hubei (SE), Chongqing (S), Sichu ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

which took place due to the rupturing of a segment of Lanzhou-Zhengzhou oil pipeline on December 30, 2009. Approximately of

diesel oil Diesel fuel , also called diesel oil, is any liquid fuel specifically designed for use in a diesel engine, a type of internal combustion engine in which fuel ignition takes place without a spark as a result of compression of the inlet air and t ...

flowed down the

Wei River The Wei River () is a major river in west-central China's Gansu and Shaanxi provinces. It is the largest tributary of the Yellow River and very important in the early development of Chinese civilization. The source of the Wei River is close to ...

before finally reaching the Yellow River, the source of drinking water for millions of people, on January 4, 2010.

Background

The Lanzhou-Zhengzhou oil pipeline project was approved in 2007 and opened for operation in March 2009. It is a part of the -long Lanzhou-Zhengzhou-Changsha pipeline with a capacity of transporting 15 million tons of oil per year. According to

China National Petroleum Corporation The China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) () is a major national oil and gas corporation of China and one of the largest integrated energy groups in the world. Its headquarters are in Dongcheng District, Beijing. CNPC was ranked fourth ...

(CNPC), the rupture took place on December 30, 2009 due to an accident near

Weinan Weinan () is a prefecture-level city in the east central Shaanxi province, China. The city lies on the lower section of the Wei River confluence into the Yellow River, about east of the provincial capital Xi'an, and borders the provinces of Shan ...

where construction was underway by third-party workers. However, the incident was not publicized until January 3, 2010. The deputy director of the Yellow River Water Resources Commission called for an investigation into the accident, refuting CNPC's claim that the accident was caused by third-party construction workers.

Spill control efforts

About 150,000 litres of diesel had already leaked out before the pipeline was closed by CNPC. According to

Pacific Environment Pacific Environment is an environmental organization based in San Francisco, California, United States, founded in 1987. Its objective is to protect the living environment of the Pacific Rim. History The organization was founded 1987 as Paci ...

China's co-director Wen Bo, 700 workers were quickly mobilized by the government to control the spill as soon as its occurrence became known. They dug diversion channels and built floating dams to stop the pollutant from advancing further downstream. Solidifying chemicals were also used to remove the fuel from the stream. Despite these efforts, officials found traces of diesel in the Yellow River on January 4, 2010, 200 km upstream of

Zhengzhou Zhengzhou (; ), also spelt Zheng Zhou and alternatively romanized as Chengchow, is the capital and largest city of Henan Province in the central part of the People's Republic of China. Located in north-central Henan, it is one of the National ...

. No pollution was detected downstream of

Sanmenxia Sanmenxia (; postal: Sanmenhsia) is a prefecture-level city in the west of Henan Province, China. The westernmost prefecture-level city in Henan, Sanmenxia borders Luoyang to the east, Nanyang to the southeast, Shaanxi Province to the west and Sh ...

, although the

Sanmenxia reservoir The Sanmenxia Dam is a concrete gravity dam on the middle-reaches of the Yellow River near Sanmenxia Gorge on the border between Shanxi province and Henan Province, China. The dam is multi-purpose and was constructed for flood and ice control al ...

was found to contain traces of toxic diesel.

Sanmenxia Dam The Sanmenxia Dam is a concrete gravity dam on the middle-reaches of the Yellow River near Sanmenxia Gorge on the border between Shanxi province and Henan Province, China. The dam is multi-purpose and was constructed for flood and ice control alon ...

and its six hydroelectric generators were shut down to prevent the flow of pollutant further downstream. On 5 January, Zhang Xun, an official of the Ministry of Environmental Protection confirmed that the spill had been contained in the Sanmenxia reservoir and was no longer a threat to the river water downstream.

References

Oil spills in China 2009 industrial disasters 2010 industrial disasters 2009 disasters in China 2010 disasters in China Yellow River 2009 in the environment 2010 in the environment Environmental disasters in China December 2009 events in China January 2010 events in China {{China National Petroleum Corporation

Background

Spill control efforts

See also

References