‘Dirtiest city’ faces massive lay-offs while cleaning up air(2)

Government measures

At the end of 2011, the government started a campaign to clean up Xingtai, headed by Wang Aimin, then secretary of the municipal Party committee.

At the time, Xingtai's media called the campaign an "environmental revolution." Media reports have claimed that within a few months, the local government removed more than 3.2 million square meters of trash from an area of 300 million square meters.

Last September, the Hebei provincial government issued an order stating that, by 2017, steel production in the province must be reduced by 60 million tons and that the amount of coal burnt must be reduced by 40 million tons.

A meeting was held immediately after the plan was announced, during which mayors from all of Hebei's cities, including Xingtai's mayor, signed a "responsibility contract" and were assigned a emission reduction target.

Xingtai's goal was to decrease the amount of PM2.5 in its air by 30 percent over five years.

The government encouraged the public to photograph any activity that was polluting the air. It also sent out 1,038 volunteers to companies to oversee their efforts and initiated a crackdown on polluting businesses.

Cheng Hua lost his factory due to the government's attempts to cut pollution.

Cheng used to own a small lime powder plant in northwest Xingtai, which made him about 1 million yuan ($160,000) of profit per year.

The factory employed people from surrounding villages and the locals could earn much higher wages than they could by farming, so even though the powder permeated the air when the wind blew, the villagers didn't complain much.

A week after the mayor's meeting, Cheng and other small factory owners received a notice from the government telling them to terminate production.

"There's no call for improvement measures […] the government just won't let you operate any more because it needs to clean up the air pollution," he told the Nandu Weekly.

At the same time, another Xingtai resident who ran an oil mill for 20 years, was told to shut down his business as well. He says that he can't make a living now.

"When it gets warmer, I'll find a part-time work outside Xingtai. There's nothing wrong with the government wanting to clean up the air, but they should let the people eat," he said.

Thousands of small plants were affected by this drive for clean air. The media has reported that by October 14, among the industrial plants in Xingtai, 1,813 had met emission reduction targets, 625 plants had gone bankrupt and 135 were forced to shut down because they didn't meet emission standards.

The Xingtai Iron and Steel Corporation, formerly a key part of the city's economy, has also come under pressure. To meet Hebei's targets, Xingtai needs to reduce its steel production by 4 million tons over the next five years and reduce the amount of coal burnt by 3 million tons.

Job half done

Even though these environmental measures have been applauded, the results have been questioned as well. Businesses being forced to close has created problems for Xingtai's workers.

Wang Dayong, the secretary general of the Hebei Metallurgy Industry Association, told the Oriental Morning Post that reducing steel production by 60 million tons will mean losing roughly 200,000 jobs.

The Dongpang Mining Company is already in crisis. A worker surnamed Zhang who has worked there for 30 years told the Oriental Morning Post that he now only makes around 2,000 yuan per month, half of what he made before these measures were introduced.

On the company's online forum, many workers discuss the issues around their salaries, clearly afraid this situation will not improve. Zhang said he knows that some mines have not been able pay their employees for a long time and that the workers demonstrated in front of government buildings.

Zhang Yingxing, the marketing director for the Hebei Metallurgy Industry Association, thinks that the solution to these problems is to bring new industries to the region which can provide financial support to the government, as well as employing workers that have lost their jobs in the steel industry.

Reports from Xingtai's government show that it is increasingly indebted. In 2012, its debt rose to 26.9 billion yuan. Its heavy industries, which were once big sources of tax revenue, have been struck a huge blow by the province-wide clean-up. Data shows that in 2014, local tax revenue was reduced by 530 million yuan.

On the other hand, the cleanup has not totally dispelled the smog and Xingtai still needs effective long-term measures to completely cure it of heavy pollution.

After consistently having the worst average air quality in China for six consecutive months, this July Xingtai's air quality finally became better than that of Tangshan, another industrial city in Hebei, moving up to second-to-last place. The Xingtai Environmental Protection Bureau applauded its achievement on its official website.

But on the day of that announcement, Xingtai's PM2.5 level was over 500 again. And on the day after. And on the day after that.

In September, Wang Aimin was placed under investigation, according to the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the CPC. As soon as he was removed from office, the cleanup began to peter out.

According to workers at the Xingtai Iron and Steel Corporation, the furnaces that were shut down by the company started operating again in September.