No way to run a country

China vows to clean up polluted lake - International Herald Tribune

Last week I referred to an article that talked about severe pollution problems in a famous lake in China.

It seems that the government has decided to clean it up, but look at the way the wheels turn there:

This spring, urban sewage and chemical dumping caused an explosion of bright green pond scum that coated much of the giant lake with a fetid algal coating. Panic quickly followed in Wuxi, a nearby city that depended on the lake to supply drinking water for its 2.3 million residents. Officials were forced to shut off the drinking water supply for several days.

Er, yes, sounds serious. Yet there initial response had been to to arrest the local farmer who started the warnings:

Several local officials have been fired or demoted, and state news media have reported that regulators have already closed as many as 1,000 factories in the area.

But the new crackdown has not helped Wu Lihong, a local environmentalist who has spent more than a decade trying to force official action. Wu, a feisty peasant, had repeatedly protested against the chemical factories and the local officials who protected them.

Wu was arrested shortly before the algae crisis and was later convicted in August on questionable charges. He is now serving three years in prison, even as his direst warnings about the lake have come to pass.