XIAOXIN, China (Reuters) – Nothing in Wu Wenyong’s rural childhood hinted he would end up on a hospital bed aged 15, battling two kinds of cancer.
Born to poor farmers in Xiaoxin, a dusty village of low brick houses in southwestern Yunnan province, he paddled in the Nanpan River as a child and later helped his parents tend rice.
About 3 km (two miles) from Wu’s home stands a three-storey high hill of chromium slag produced from the Yunnan Luliang Peace Technology Company. The runoff from chromium-6, listed as a carcinogen by the World Health Organisation, seeped into the Nanpan, turning its waters yellow.
And the toxic water and earth that Wu’s family blames for his condition have become a battleground over how far China will bend to letting courts punish pollution.
The chromium hill is a rallying point for a coalition of environmental advocacy groups, who have filed a public interest lawsuit for residents of Xiaoxin and nearby Xinglong in a special environment court.
Last September, Wu’s face ballooned and tumor-like growths developed on his neck. He was diagnosed with thymoma, cancer of the thymus gland in the chest, and with leukemia.
“The pollution is quite terrible. I’ve heard stories of cattle dying,” Wu said,
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