METRO SHANGHAI / TWOCENTS
Scandal of porcine flotilla that won’t sail away
Published: Mar 14, 2013 06:18 PM Updated: Mar 28, 2013 12:03 PM

On Tree Planting Day - which happened on Tuesday - local media normally focus on how many trees have been planted in the city during the past year. This takes the form of obligatory photos of people planting trees, alongside reports of the great efforts being made to curb pollution and the strides to improve our green spaces.

But this year was different, with the papers finding room for only one story: the discovery of thousands of pig carcasses in the Huangpu River, and the quest to find how they got there.

Shanghai and Zhejiang Province are good neighbors, and both amity and conflict usually co-exist between such neighbors. And the story of the dead pigs has bound the two places even tighter than ever.

The facts are that more than 6,000 rotting pigs were found floating in the upper reaches of the Huangpu River which is a source of drinking water to millions of Shanghai residents.

Comparing the smog and pollution in Beijing to the current water safety issue in Shanghai has become a topic of light-hearted online bantering in the past week. Jokers point out that while Beijingers are lucky to be able to inhale free nicotine just by opening their windows, we Shanghainese are even luckier to receive free pork-bone soup every time we turn on the tap.

And just as people in Beijing have got into the habit of wearing masks to protect against pollution, many residents in Shanghai are now drinking bottled water instead of tap water.

Pig farmers in the Jiaxing area of Zhejiang Province may be responsible for the incident, but by Wednesday only one pig farm there had confessed to dumping pigs in the river with the farm owner being detained for questioning.

The farm was traced through an ear tag found on one of the animals. The authorities have collected 14 such tags and further investigations are underway.    

To date, three official announcements by the authorities in both Zhejiang and Shanghai have served only to confuse and alarm the public.

The first came on Tuesday when an official from the Zhejiang provincial agricultural administration said that the pigs had perished due to the cold weather, rather than because of a contagious virus.

The public expressed understandable incredulity at such a bizarre claim.

Zhejiang farmers have plenty of experience in pig rearing, and the recent winter was far from being one of the worst.

The second announcement came courtesy of Shanghai's water administration. It claims that tests are regularly conducted for certain viruses including porcine circovirus and salmonella. The porcine cirvovirus was detected by the Shanghai Animal Diseases Control and Prevention Center who added that the virus cannot be transferred to humans. The public was further told that no contamination has been found in the drinking water supply which is provided by the city's major water treatment plants.

So all this news should come as a relief to Shanghai residents. But we have little reason to be complacent. Have these pigs not caused any problems whatsoever? I'm not convinced, and I believe we need more detailed and scientific information.

The third announcement was made on Wednesday by the Jiaxing government which informed us that in 2012 a total of 320,000 pigs died in the area, while in the first three months of this year, 70,000 pigs had died because of "rearing techniques" and extreme weather conditions.

We seem to be going round in circles. Where did these dead pigs come from exactly? How were they dealt with?  Is this death toll unusually high? Can anyone answer these questions?

This is also the first we have heard about a possible pig virus. And one can only surmise that if it wasn't for last week's porcine flotilla, we would never have been told at all.

The exposure, and subsequent media coverage, of "accidents" in China follow a depressingly predictable cycle. First, something happens that the public is not made aware of. Second, the story somehow leaks and is spread on Sina Weibo accounts or through other non-official online platforms. Third, the facts became overstated and even distorted, which may trigger public anger or even panic. Fourth, related departments dismiss the "rumors" while the media tries to dig out the truth. Finally, an official version of what happened is offered to the public who by this time have lost all faith in what they are told.

Local officials always justify their role in burying bad news under the fig leaf of "local protectionism."

In this case, officials didn't want news of the pig virus getting out in case it caused economic losses to local farmers.

At the same time, disease control center staff were worried about being punished by supervisors for failing to carrying out their jobs properly.

When something bad happens, and which is beyond our independent abilities to solve, the best solution is always to report it to other departments and to higher level administrators for further action.

This is doubly imperative when the possible consequences involve the safety of drinking water for millions of people. With this in mind, I would implore Jiaxing, Zhejiang and Shanghai officials to rethink their strategies for dealing with future crises. And before speaking to the public, these departments should speak to each other.

Illustration: Lu Ting/GT
Illustration: Lu Ting/GT