Chinese mines and refineries produce most of the world’s rare earth metals and practically all of a few crucial kinds of rare earths. This has given China’s government near complete control over a critical choke point in global trade.

中国掌控着全球稀土金属开采和精炼的绝对主导权，尤其在数种关键稀土品类上近乎垄断。这一优势使中国政府扼住了全球贸易的战略咽喉。

But for decades in northern China, toxic sludge from rare earth processing has been dumped into a four-square-mile artificial lake. In south-central China, rare earth mines have poisoned dozens of once-green valleys and left hillsides stripped to barren red clay.

但在中国北方，几十年的稀土精炼产生的废弃物倾倒在一个面积达11平方公里的人工湖里。在中南部，稀土矿的开采已导致几十个绿意盎然的山谷被污染，山坡被挖到只剩下贫瘠的红土。

Achieving dominance in rare earths came with a heavy cost for China, which largely tolerated severe environmental damage for many years. The industrialized world, by contrast, had tighter regulations and stopped accepting even limited environmental harm from the industry as far back as the 1990s, when rare earth mines and processing centers closed elsewhere.

中国为获得稀土行业主导地位付出了沉重代价，多年来，政府在很大程度上容许了严重的环境破坏。相比之下，工业化国家的监管更为严格，早在20世纪90年代就不再接受稀土生产造成的哪怕是有限的环境损害，导致中国以外的稀土矿和加工厂关闭。

In China, the worst damage occurred in and around Baotou, a flat, industrial city of two million people in China’s Inner Mongolia, on the southern edge of the Gobi Desert. Baotou calls itself the world capital of the rare earth industry, but the city and its people bear the scars from decades of poorly regulated rare earths production.

中国稀土生产污染最严重的地方当属包头及其周边地区。包头位于内蒙古，是一座拥有200万人口的工业城市，它地势平坦，北接戈壁滩。包头自诩为世界稀土之都，但几十年的稀土生产监管不力让这座城市及其人民深受其害。

An artificial lake of sludge known as the Weikuang Dam, four square miles in size, holds the waste left over after metals are extracted from mined ore. During the winter and spring, the sludge dries out. The dust that then blows off the lake is contaminated with lead, cadmium and other heavy metals, including traces of radioactive thorium, according to technical papers by Chinese scholars.

一个被称为“尾矿库”的人工泥浆湖占地达11平方公里，里面堆存的是把金属从矿石中提取出来后余留下来的废渣。泥浆在冬天和春天变干，导致湖面上飘扬着含有铅、镉以及其他重金属粉尘，据中国学者发表的学术论文，其中包括微量放射性元素钍。

During the summer rainy season, the sludge becomes coated with a layer of water that mixes with poisons and thorium. This dangerous mix seeps into the groundwater underneath the lake.

在夏天的雨季，泥浆湖面变成了一层包含有毒物质和放射性钍的积水。这种危险的混合液体从湖底渗漏到地下水层。

The Weikuang Dam, also known as a tailings lake, is seven miles north of the Yellow River and was built in the 1950s without the thick, waterproof liner underneath that became standard in the West in the 1970s. Baotou’s lake is so large that it cannot easily be rebuilt with a liner.

该尾矿库在黄河以北10多公里的地方，建于20世纪50年代，修建时湖底没有铺设厚厚的环保防渗层，这种防渗层在20世纪70年代成为了西方国家的行业规范。包头尾矿库面积巨大，重新铺设防渗层不是容易的事情。

Government cleanup efforts have helped mitigate some health and safety risks in the industry. But Chinese academics and other experts have warned that environmental damage remains after years of poor practices and lax oversight.

政府的环境整治努力帮助缓解了稀土行业的部分健康和安全风险。但中国的学者和其他专家警告说，多年来的不良做法和监管不力带来的环境损害依然存在。

“The closer to the tailings lake, the more serious the pollution and the higher the environmental and ecological risk,” said scholars at the Inner Mongolia University of Science and Technology in a research paper in January.

“离尾矿库越近，污染越严重，环境和生态风险越高，”内蒙古科技大学的学者在今年1月发表的一篇研究论文中指出。

Similarly, researchers at the elite Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, which is a government ministry, warned in a technical paper last year about “serious air and tailings pond pollution” in the Baotou area.

位于北京的部级研究机构中国科学院的研究人员去年在一篇研究论文中也发出过类似的警告，称包头地区存在“严重的空气和尾矿库污染”。

The Baotou Radiation Environment Management Office warned in 2009 that at the Bayan Obo iron ore and rare earths mine, 80 miles north of the city in the Gobi Desert, radioactive thorium was being “discharged into the environment in the form of waste slag, wastewater and dust.” In 2003, another paper found intellectual development disorders among children in Baotou affected by rare earths industry pollution, and a paper in 2017 found that children in Baotou still had potentially harmful levels of rare earths in their urine.

包头市生态环境局负责辐射安全监管的办公室曾在2009年警告说，在包头市以北约130公里、位于戈壁滩的白云鄂博矿（这里生产铁矿和稀土元素矿），矿石中的放射性钍“以废渣、废水和粉尘的形式排放到环境中”。一篇2003年的论文发现，受稀土工业环境污染的影响，包头市儿童中存在智力发育迟缓的问题。另一篇发表在2017年的论文发现，包头儿童的尿液中稀土元素的含量仍高达可能对健康有害的水平。

包头钢厂和稀土提炼厂附近的一条土路，摄于2010年10月。

The enormous Bayan Obo strip mine produces most of China’s so-called light rare earths, like lanthanum for oil refining, and most of its medium rare earths, like samarium for the magnets in fighter jets and missiles. In trade disputes with the United States and the European Union, China has since April halted exports of samarium to any country and has restricted exports of heavy rare earths, which are mined separately near Longnan in south-central China.

白云鄂博矿是一个巨大的露天矿，该矿生产中国的绝大部分轻稀土，例如用于炼油的镧，以及中国的大部分中稀土，例如战斗机和导弹磁体用钐。中国在与美国和欧盟的贸易争端中，自今年4月起全面停止钐的出口，并对重稀土的出口进行限制。中国的重稀土矿位于中南部的龙南地区。

Until a crackdown in 2010 and 2011, many illegal mines in south-central China spilled acid and ammonia into streams, poisoning rice fields.

政府在2010年、2011年开始进行环境整改之前，中国中南部的许多非法矿山曾把含有酸和氨的废水排入小溪，给附近的稻田造成了严重污染。

China’s leaders have been working for over a decade to clean up the country’s rare earth industry, at a cost running into the billions of dollars.

中国领导人们十多年来一直在努力对稀土行业进行环境整改，已经投入了上百亿人民币。

“Excessive rare earth mining has resulted in landslides, clogged rivers, environmental pollution emergencies and even major accidents and disasters, causing great damage to people’s safety and health and the ecological environment,” China’s cabinet wrote in 2012 in a comprehensive report on the industry’s pollution.

“一些地方因为稀土的过度开采，还造成山体滑坡、河道堵塞、突发性环境污染事件，甚至造成重大事故灾难，给公众的生命健康和生态环境带来重大损失，”中国国务院曾在2012年发布的《稀土状况与政策》白皮书中这样写道。

During a visit I made in 2010 to the Baotou tailings lake, a berm, little more than a high pile of earth, lay around its perimeter to contain the sludge. Rare earth refineries, then along the north side of the lake, were crude facilities with workers stirring big vats by hand. A nearby residential community had high rates of pollution-related health problems, according to Chinese experts at the time. Baotou itself was shrouded with smog, and the air had an acrid, faintly metallic taste.

我曾在2010年去包头那个尾矿库做实地探访，将库区围起来的不过是一条用土堆成的护坡道。尾矿库的北边是稀土精炼厂，工厂的设施那时很简陋，工人们搅拌着大桶里的东西。据中国专家当时的说法，附近的一个居民区有很高的污染致病率。包头也笼罩在雾霾之中，空气里有略带金属感的刺鼻气味。

工人们为包头的钢厂和稀土提炼厂修建排放废料的管道，一名牧羊人从他们前边走过，摄于2010年10月。

Some progress since then is visible. During a return visit in early June, it was clear that the berm had been reinforced with stones. And outside the berm was a concrete-walled moat that could catch leaks from the berm.

如今环境整改已取得了一些看得见的进展。我今年6月初回到那里时看到，护坡道已明显地用石头进行了加固。护坡道的外边还修了一条用混凝土围筑的护城河，能堵住从护坡道里渗漏出来的泥浆。

The residential community had been moved to a less polluted area of the city. Replacing it were steel-walled industrial sheds. Few people were around. The smog had disappeared, and the air tasted clean.

附近的居民区已迁到了包头市污染较少的地方。取而代之的是用钢墙修建的工棚。周围没有多少人。雾霾也消失了，空气的气味清新。

Dust from the lake is a more difficult problem to resolve. In processing rare earths, acid is used to pry apart the chemical envelope that contains them in nature. Radioactive thorium is almost always released. In Baotou, it was simply dumped into the lake for decades instead of being stored in special repositories, as required in the West.

尾矿库的粉尘问题更难解决。稀土的提取需要用酸来将其从自然界的化合物状态中分离出来。这个过程几乎不可避免地将放射性钍释放出来。包头的工厂几十年来一直将钍直接倾倒在尾矿库里，而不是像西方国家那样，将其储存在专门地点。

The Inner Mongolia government announced in 2015 that refineries had begun treating their waste before discharging it into the lake, but did not specify how the thorium was handled.

内蒙古政府虽然已在2015年宣布，精炼厂已开始在排入尾矿库之前对废料进行处理，但没有具体说明钍的处置方案。

In the days of the Soviet Union, thorium dust blew across Scandinavia from a tailings pond at a rare earth processing facility in Estonia. Soon after the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, the European Union spent close to 1 billion euros to build an adjacent pit with 10-foot-thick concrete walls, move the sludge into it and then cover it with 30 feet of dirt.

苏联时代，爱沙尼亚一家稀土加工厂尾矿库的含钍尘埃曾飘越过斯堪的纳维亚半岛。1991年苏联解体后不久，欧盟耗资近10亿欧元，在老库邻近建了一个有三米厚混凝土墙的新库，将泥浆从老库转运到新库，然后用了一个九米厚的泥土层将其覆盖起来。

The Weikuang Dam has vastly more sludge because the effluent from rare earth processing is mixed into an enormous volume of material from iron ore processing. Any effort to move and store the sludge would be a logistical challenge, and no attempt to do so was visible when I visited in June.

包头尾矿库存放的泥浆量比任何地方的都多，因为里面除了稀土加工产生的废水，还有数量巨大的铁矿石加工废渣。任何将泥浆搬到别的地方储存的努力将面临巨大的组织工作挑战，我6月份去那里时，完全没有看到任何清运尝试。

江西龙南市郊区一座正在开采的重稀土矿，摄于今年4月。

But even as other cleanup measures continue, the Chinese authorities have increasingly censored discussions of rare earth industry pollution. State media reported a decade ago that thousands of acres of grasslands near Baotou had been closed to livestock grazing after sheep and goats had been fatally poisoned by dust from the rare earth industry. But practically no mention of that incident can be found online now inside China.

但就在持续推进环境整治的同时，中国当局已在越来越严格地审查有关稀土行业污染的讨论。中国官媒十多年前曾报道，稀土工业产生的粉尘污染导致羊等牲畜死亡，包头附近的数千亩草原被禁止放牧。但如今在中国境内的网上，几乎找不到任何有关上述事件的报道。

Oversight of the rare earth industry in Baotou is complicated. Pollution regulation in China is mainly the responsibility of provincial governments — in this case, the government of Inner Mongolia.

对包头稀土行业的监管颇为复杂。中国的污染监管主要由省级政府负责，对包头来说是内蒙古自治区政府。

But the same provincial government also owns Baogang Group, a mining and chemicals giant that runs the Bayan Obo mine, the steel mills and most of the rare earth refineries in Baotou. Baogang has been a pillar of China’s military-industrial complex since Mao. The Baotou Museum celebrates that Baogang made much of the steel for China’s tanks and artillery in the 1950s.

但内蒙古自治区政府也是包钢集团的拥有者，这家矿业和化工巨头经营着白云鄂博矿、钢铁厂，以及包头的大部分稀土精炼厂。从毛泽东时代以来，包钢一直是中国军工产业的重要支柱。包头博物馆自豪地宣称，包钢曾在20世纪50年代为中国的坦克和大炮生产了大量钢材。

During my trip to Baotou in early June, two colleagues and I were stopped on a public road by eight carloads of police officers and Baogang security guards and questioned. We were put in the back of a police cruiser and later taken to a guardroom at Baogang’s headquarters. With 21 carloads of police officers and local officials outside, we were held for two hours and questioned further before being released and told that the Weikuang Dam was “a business secret of the Baogang Group.”

今年6月初去包头时，我和两名同事在公路上被八辆里面坐有警察和包钢保安的车拦截。我们被带上一辆警车，然后被带到包钢总部的一个警卫室。我们在那里被扣留了两个小时，经进一步盘问才被释放，警卫室外面当时有21辆警车和当地官员的汽车。我们被告知尾矿库是“包钢集团的商业秘密”。

A woman there who said she was with Baogang’s rare earth subsidiary, but did not provide her name, said that Baogang declined to comment.

那里一名自称在包钢稀土子公司工作，但没有透露姓名的女士说，包钢拒绝对本文置评。

There were also modest signs of environmental improvement during a visit in April to the main valley producing heavy rare earths near Longnan.

我今年4月去龙南附近生产重稀土的主要山谷走访时，也看到了环境改善的些许迹象。

A small tailings pond next to the largest of the mines had a black liner visibly sticking up around its sides, in an apparent attempt to contain pollution.

在一个位于最大矿场边的小尾矿池可以看出池内壁上有黑色内衬，似乎是一种控制污染的尝试。

But a creek flowing through the valley past several smaller mines was bright orange and bubbling mysteriously.

但一条从山谷流出、途径几座更小矿场的小溪是鲜橙色的，里面冒着神秘的水泡。