BEIJING (Reuters) – Chinese artist Brother Nut can point to some success from his Beijing exhibit that used 10,000 bottles of yellowish water to raise awareness of contaminated rural ground water, although it did not go down so well with Beijing authorities.
While it has stepped up clean-up projects in recent years, environmental activists say awareness of the issue lags far behind that of air pollution, while enforcement of quality standards is patchy.
“People have focused more on air pollution, because smog is easy to spot.
He uses a pseudonym and says he does not want to use his real name to “protect” himself.
So in June, he set out to change things.
Xiaohaotu residents say the water is contaminated with pollutants.
While that prompted the environmental bureau covering Xiaohaotu to launch an investigation and oil giant Sinopec to partly stop drilling in a gas field residents say is the source of the contamination, Beijing authorities took a dim view of the art and confiscated most of the bottles.
When Brother Nut took the remaining bottles and his exhibit on the road, local officials pounced to confiscate them, saying he had parked illegally and was driving without a license.
He even tried to organize a heavy metal concert in Xiaohaotu on land he says was “deeply contaminated by heavy metals”, to raise awareness.
Huabei oil-and-gas company, the Sinopec subsidiary in charge of the project, declined to comment and referred Reuters to an online statement announcing that drilling had been partly suspended pending the outcome of the environmental investigation.