Planned battery plant loses its charge

An industrial park in Pudong New Area has scrapped a plan to build a controversial lithium ion battery factory at its site due to fierce opposition from local residents, the park's management said Tuesday.

Residents in the area opposed the project because they were afraid that the factory would pollute the surrounding environment, said Wang Xingwen, an office director with the Shanghai Nanhui Industrial Park, where the plant was to be built.

"We decided to give up the project due to the fierce objections from residents," Wang told the Global Times.

Shanghai ZTE New Energy Science Technology Co Ltd, a subsidiary of ZTE Holdings Co Ltd in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, put up the funds to build the 74,650-square-meter factory, which was designed to produce 5 million electric car batteries a year, according to an environment evaluation report on the project.

Wang said residents began to muster opposition to the plant after the Shanghai Environmental Protection Bureau published the environment evaluation report on February 27.

Although the report, conducted by the Shanghai Academy of Environmental Sciences, determined the plant would not hurt the environment, it wasn't enough to assuage the fears of local residents.

A host of residents called or wrote to the environmental bureau to oppose the plant's construction, Wang said.

Some residents took to the streets with homemade signs and slogans to protest the project, said a resident surnamed Chen. They distributed fliers to persuade other residents to take action.

A resident surnamed Liu told the Global Times that he saw the plant as an environmental and health hazard.

Chen told the Global Times that she was very happy that the plant wouldn't be built in her neighborhood.

Yan Pei, a senior engineer in charge of the environmental evaluation, declined to comment on whether the plant would have posed any danger to the environment or people's health due to the sensitivity of the issue.

Battery plants in Pudong have caused pollution in the past. In September 2011, the environmental bureau determined that a battery manufacturer, Shanghai Johnson Controls International Battery Co Ltd, was the major source of the pollution that left 49 children in Kangqiao town with excessive lead in their blood, the Xinhua News Agency reported. Shanghai Xinmingyuan Automobile Parts Co Ltd was also found to be responsible for the incident.