Camphor tree sand mining rivers and lakes
China News Weekly reporter/Huang Xiaoguang
Issued in the 993th issue of China News Weekly on 2021.4.26
When the Ganjiang River flows through Jiangxi from south to north, passing through the county-level city of Zhangshu in Yichun, it brings abundant sand and gravel resources that stretch for nearly 30 kilometers.
Zhangshu City divides this section of the river into 5 mining areas.
Recently, "China News Weekly" visited the site and found that 13 sand dredgers were docked in the river, 2 of which were frozen due to the case involved, and the remaining 9 were allowed to operate only 10 days a month according to the local rotation system.
"Since the outbreak of the April 12th case, we have not had much work to do." An interviewed ship owner took a part-time job as a ticket teller in the sand yard.
The case in his mouth refers to a criminal case that was investigated by the Yichun City Public Security Bureau on April 12, 2019.
The persons involved in this case are all sand mining practitioners. Since 2008, they have monopolized the local sand mining industry through contracting river sand mining rights.
The case was sentenced in the first instance in November 2020, and 28 defendants were sentenced to imprisonment ranging from 1 to 17 years. The case is currently in the second instance appeal stage.
This crime-related case occurred in the context of the eradication of evil and the rectification of the sand mining industry, and to a certain extent reflects the chaos in the sand mining industry that has been difficult to control for a long time.
Sky-high auction
On December 29, 2007, the sand mining industry in Zhangshu City, Jiangxi Province underwent an "extraordinary auction" based on the 2008 sand mining operation right in the mineable area of the Zhangshu section of the Ganjiang River.
This is the first local test of water and sand mining rights auction. The auction started from 6.3 million yuan, and the five sand mining owners “fighted” each other until the bidder Xia Jianrong became the bidder with a price of 22.4 million yuan.
From then to 2016, Xia Jianrong and his partners continued to bid for the right to operate the sand mining in the river section, and thus began a "history of gangs" that lasted for many years.
The first-instance judgment of the Zhangshu Court obtained by China News Weekly mentioned that for many years, triad organizations headed by Zeng Zhiping and Xia Jianrong have used patrols as law enforcement teams and resorted to violent and threats to conduct large-scale auctions collusion, provocation, and illegal activities. There were more than 50 illegal and criminal activities such as mining, bribery, extortion, deliberate destruction of property, and gatherings for fights, resulting in minor injuries to three people, damage to several vehicles and ships, and economic losses of more than 20,000 yuan.
The verdict said that from 2008 to 2019, the organization obtained illegal profits of more than one billion yuan and extorted tens of thousands of yuan.
The Zhangshu section of the Ganjiang River has a wide estuary and a narrow estuary. A large amount of sediment is deposited here during the wet season every year, forming abundant sand and gravel resources.
According to the person involved in the case, Bai Jianxiong, the Zhangshu sand mining market is divided into two areas, Hedong and Hexi, bordered by the Ganjiang River. Hedong is close to the urban area. Most of the sand yard owners are laid-off workers of shipping companies after the reform and opening up; Hexi is close to the countryside and sand yards. The main ones are mostly villagers along the river.
"We are all sandy soil, we can't grow crops, we can only develop sideline businesses." The wife of Lan Guisheng, a villager in Hexi and the person involved in the case, told China News Weekly.
She and her husband entered the sand and gravel industry in the 1980s, starting from shoulder-to-hand digging, and step by step development to today's sand mining equipment with an investment value of nearly 10 million.
In the early years, retail investors in the camphor tree sand mining market operated independently, trapped in vicious competition.
After 2000, Xia Jianrong's joint operation of Hedong retail investors achieved results. Hexi retail investors, led by Zeng Zhiping, followed suit. Since then, the industry structure has gone through the parallelism of the Hedong and Hexi camps, and the process of further integration on both sides of the strait.
In the early evaluations of Yichun Water Resources Bureau, sand mining in Zhangshu River has been difficult to manage, disorderly, and plundering and destructive mining have been repeatedly prohibited for many years.
The bureau hopes to solve the problem of illegal sand mining in the local area through the paid auction of sand mining operation rights.
However, the implementation of the auction system failed to effectively prevent illegal sand mining.
Zhangshu City has packaged and auctioned the right to operate sand mining, and the auction winners have in fact formed a monopoly.
After winning the right to operate sand mining at a high price, Xia Jianrong teamed up with Zeng Zhiping and 12 sand mining owners on both sides of the Ganjiang River to form the Zhangshu River Sand and Stone Sales Center (hereinafter referred to as the sand and gravel company). .
In the description of the aforementioned judgment, a sand farmer named Chen Aiping frequently pirated sand and gravel in the river section they contracted, and repeatedly failed to stop it.
On September 1, 2008, Chen Aiping was arrested again. Dozens of people from the sand and gravel company rushed to Chen Aiping’s sand yard, smashed objects in the sand yard with steel pipes, hammers, etc., and burned the agricultural vehicles in the sand yard. And shed.
From 2010 to 2016, in order to expand the amount of sand and gravel mining, Zeng Zhiping, Xia Jianrong, etc. acquiesced or even invested in the construction of unlicensed sand mining ships, and arranged for these ships to mine sand in the Zhangshu River.
By 2016, there are more than 70 sand mining vessels in the Ganjiang River in Zhangshu City, of which only 26 have sand mining licenses, and 9 of the unlicensed sand mining vessels are related to sand and gravel shareholders.
The Jiangxi Provincial Water Resources Department once analyzed an article that sand mining owners often resort to overtime, over-range, and over-exploitation in order to recover costs and obtain high profits when they obtain the right to sell at a high price.
According to the aforementioned judgment, "For many years, the organization has conducted predatory mining on the Ganjiang and Yuanhe rivers in Zhangshu. By the end of 2018, the amount of sand and gravel sold by the organization was more than that specified in the contract for the transfer of sand mining rights. Several times."
As for the actual mining data, Peng Xiaoru, director of the Sand Extraction Office of Zhangshu City, explained to China News Weekly that “previously, the supervision methods were not so comprehensive, and we could only count backwards from the amount involved.”
Illegal sand mining is a common feature in sand mining in Zhangshu, Jiangxi and even the whole country.
In the case of Zheng Guoping’s illegal sand mining in Jingzhou, Hubei, the gang involved was accused of forming a “joint fleet” of illegal sand mining, spreading wildly across 9 provinces and 36 cities, and the daily illegal mining volume reached 10,000 tons; in the case of Lin Jingquan, Guangdong, the court found that The total amount of illegal sand mining by this organization was 12.38 million cubic meters, which caused more than 2.96 billion yuan in damage to the ecological environment of the river. The Guangdong triad organization led by Chen Zhihui illegally mining tens of millions of cubic meters and made more than 1 billion yuan in profits.
The aforementioned judgment mentioned that because the auction price is much higher than the starting price, the investment will be at a loss based on the amount of sand and gravel mining and the sales price specified in the transfer contract. Therefore, the sand and gravel company has determined the business strategy of increasing production and selling at the highest price limit by the government. .
After the implementation of the auction system, the price of sand and gravel in Zhangshu City was adjusted from the original 5 yuan/square to 18 yuan/square, which made many outsiders coveted.
"From villagers to gangsters, our local name is'Luohan'. There are more and more people who want to come in. There are also a series of problems in the industry, such as stealing sand, stealing squares, reselling, and transporting sand from outside to inside." A family member of Zeng Zhiping said. Said in an interview with "China News Weekly".
The sand and gravel company formed its own patrol.
The indictment lists more than 30 illegal and criminal acts by patrol members to provoke troubles.
According to Zeng Zhiping’s defense attorney Hu Weixing, these behaviors are targeted at two main groups: pirates of sand and gravel, and sand-pulling drivers who are engaged in external sand and internal transportation.
The internal transportation of sand from outside refers to that after the price of camphor tree sand rises, there is a price gap with the neighboring Fengcheng city. So many people enter the sand from Fengcheng and dump it on camphor trees at low prices, which poses a threat to the operation of the Zhangshu sand and stone company. .
Hu Weixing believes that the tragedies of the defendants such as Zeng Zhiping and Xia Jianrong are largely deduced from this issue.
The verdict recorded more than a dozen incidents of quarrels and quarrels caused by sand and gravel companies due to external sand and internal transportation.
According to this document, the sand and gravel company has formed a relatively fixed pattern of behavior in order to stop the transportation of sand from outside to inside. The first interception and warning, the second time of pouring sand and gravel, the recording of license plates, the third time of detaining vehicles, fines, and consignment. The driver writes a letter of guarantee.
"Sand and gravel companies punish the drivers of external sand internal transportation. It is illegal to do so. They do not have the right to do so, but after all they have photographed the sand mining right of our river in Zhangshu City." Former deputy director of Zhangshu City Water Conservancy Bureau Huang Jinlin, executive director of the sand mining office, once confessed.
Fu Xiaoping, another member of the sand mining office in Zhangshu City, mentioned as a witness to the case that when dealing with external sand and internal transportation issues, sand and gravel companies usually report to the sand mining office first, and then go to the site with the sand mining office staff to detain them. car.
"Sometimes when a driver goes to petition, Jinlin will warn the driver not to transport sand to camphor trees."
Conflicts between sand and gravel companies, villagers and sand transport drivers have intensified.
According to the verdict, in September 2011, dozens of people from the sand and gravel company demonstrated in Zhufang Village in more than 20 trolleys carrying steel pipes, deterring local drivers and villagers engaged in internal transportation of sand.
On September 17, Zhufang villagers clashed with the sand and gravel company again, and patrol members smashed the villagers’ sand-pull vehicles.
According to Hu Weixing's understanding, this incident attracted the attention of the main leaders of Zhangshu City, and relevant government departments formed a joint investigation team to intervene in the investigation.
"Blackmailed underworld"
"China News Weekly" found that the tens of kilometers of sand mining river in Zhangshu is not a black and white field.
From auctions, sand mining, sales to transportation, many parties participate in the pursuit of profit. The game between them and the sand and gravel company has almost penetrated the entire sand mining history of the sand and gravel company.
"(Sand mining) is not like factory production. Enclose a plot of land and introduce a production line to close the operation. Sand mining in the river is a completely open field. It must be in contact with farmers, contractors on coastal beaches, sand-stealing arhats, and thief. Fang’s drivers will encounter many disputes when dealing with them.” Bai Jianxiong explained to China News Weekly.
The verdict recorded an attempted fight in a crowd.
In the first half of 2013, a sand mining vessel from the Yanjiawan Sand Field, in which Zeng Zhiping invested, went to the junction of Yujiazhou and Yanjiawan for mining. Villager Chen Shuping used the ship to dig into the boundary of Yujiazhou and visited the site many times. Troubles and nuisances on board.
Zeng Zhiping, Yang Jun and others discussed and decided that the sand and gravel company would come forward to solve the problem.
On May 21, 2013, members of the sand and gravel company arrived near Yanjiawan to dig sand, attracting Chen Shuping.
"They actually had two preparations for going to the Yanjiawan Sand Field. One hand is to talk, and then they will not fight; the other hand is to fight, but they will fight if they fail to talk." Hu Weixing said.
Soon Chen Shuping brought people to the sand mining boat to make trouble. The social personnel commanded and assembled by the shareholders of the sand mining company chased Chen Shuping with arms, and Chen Shuping escaped in a small boat.
Obstruction by villagers in the sand mining section of the winning bid is a common phenomenon in the sand mining industry.
On June 9, 2018, a sand dredger suddenly turned over in Quanzhou County, Yunnan. After investigation, the problem was that three wire ropes of the fixed sand dredger were cut off by nearby villagers, and similar incidents occurred frequently in the local area.
"Villagers generally believe that the river and the land at the entrance of our village, why can't we dig sand, and the government sells it to others?"
In the aforementioned Chen Aiping incident, Jiang Huzhou Village, Xinjiang Village Committee, Changshu Changfu Township, Zhangshu Changfu Township, arbitrarily transferred the sand mining right of the river section owned by the state to Chen Aiping. Chen Aiping later subcontracted to Xiao Mou who had not obtained the river sand mining license and mining license. , Liao, Zong and others.
Since then, they have been held criminally responsible for illegal mining by the court.
The aforementioned judgment also records a case: There is a 30-mu beach island in Yang Village, Zhangjiashan Street, Zhangshu. Since 2011, it has been contracted by Yang Chunbao and others from the village committee to raise funds to build 4 sand mining boats and a sand yard. Digging sand on the sandbank.
The Municipal Sand Excavation Office has intervened many times, and the village collective said that if it asked to give up sand mining, the government would purchase its sand mining equipment.
After the check failed, the municipal sand mining office took a step back and delineated the sand mining boundary for the village, but in fact it was not effectively controlled, and it was even suspected of conniving objectively.
Behind the weak management of the competent departments, there are entangled interests.
An official from Zhangshu City revealed to China News Weekly that in the criminal case involving Zeng Zhiping, Xia Jianrong and others, three former Zhangshu City Water Conservancy Bureau officials were identified as umbrellas. One was the former Zhangshu City Water Conservancy Bureau Deputy Director and Caisha. Huang Jinlin, executive deputy director of the Office, has been sentenced for accepting bribes and bribery to non-state personnel, and two others have been dismissed and dismissed respectively.
"China News Weekly" noted that in the aforementioned judgment, Xia Jianrong, the shareholder of the sand and gravel company, and others were accused of sending to the Golden Forest several times for the organization to obtain the right to mine sand in the river channel of Zhangshu City and to obtain the attention of relevant departments in the illegal operation. Money, a total of 864,000 yuan.
In addition, according to a public report from Yichun City, Qiu Xiaojun, former captain of the Water Administration Supervision Brigade of Zhangshu City Water Resources Bureau, received gifts and gifts that may affect the fair execution of official duties, and accepted travel arrangements. One of them was to receive management services during the Spring Festival from 2011 to 2016. The subject Xia Moumou gave a gift of 60,000 yuan and high-end tobacco and alcohol worth more than 20,000 yuan.
In June 2020, Qiu Xiaojun was dismissed by the government and was demoted to a first-level clerk.
By 2015, Yang Chunbao and others had evolved from illegal sand mining to extortion.
According to a 2018 ruling by the Yichun City Intermediate Court, since 2015, Yang Chunbao and Zou Xinping have repeatedly organized Yangcun villagers to smash ships that came to pick up sand. In some cases, they even beat gongs and drums. The ship went to smash.
After each smashing, they will give the villagers involved in the disturbance a "labor fee" ranging from 30 yuan to 50 yuan each.
The Ganzhang Lincai No. 03 sand mining vessel smashed by Yang Chunbao and others belonged to the shareholder partnership of Yu Chengzhang and Zeng Zhiping.
In late May 2015, this sand mining boat was mining sand in the waters of Yangcun. After Yang Chunbao learned about it, he summoned more than ten villagers in Yangcun to hold axe and machete to board the sand mining boat and belt conveyor on the ferry. People squatted down, smashed the engines and other equipment on the two ships, and cut off the belts of the engines, reducers, and conveyor belts.
In April 2016, the ship was smashed again.
In order to continue mining sand, Yu Chengzhang was forced to pay Zou Xinping 90,000 yuan.
In September 2018, the Yichun City Intermediate People's Court ruled that the aforementioned actions of Zou Xinping, Yang Chunbao and others constituted the crime of extortion and intentional damage to property.
"If we are a triad, we are also a blackmailed triad." Bai Jianxiong said that the sand and gravel company has repeatedly paid "protection fees" to quell conflicts.
An agreement he issued to "China News Weekly" showed that Nanchang Xinjian District Jinzhou Sand and Stone Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Jinzhou Company, the successor of the aforementioned sand and gravel company) in order to mine sand in the area where the Shuangtang Village Committee is located. , A lump-sum payment of 1.2 million yuan for the “Social Stability Maintenance Fee” to Party B for one year. After Party B receives the money, it guarantees the safety of the company’s sand mining ships when mining sand in the area.
On August 3, 2017, Jinzhou Company submitted a report to the Zhangshu Sand Excavation Office, stating that there have been social underworld forces participating in illegal beaches in the Ganjiang River Basin of Zhangshu. In the form of buying and selling, local villagers found local villagers to contract the river beach, and used this to blackmail the sand mining boat owners for money and obstruct the company's normal operation and production.
Jinzhou Company requested the sand mining office to crack down on the illegal acts of the underworld forces on the water.
"Unstoppable"
In 2019, the 10 provinces (municipalities) of the Yangtze River Basin and the Yangtze River Shipping Public Security Bureau launched a one-year special operation to combat illegal sand mining and crimes by criminal forces.
According to statistics from the Ministry of Public Security, the special operation destroyed 50 illegal sand mining organizations and 40 evil criminal groups, cracked 1,667 criminal cases of various types, and seized more than 1.79 billion yuan in assets related to gangs.
In 2021, the Ministry of Public Security once again deployed the Yangtze River Basin to carry out a one-year special strike operation.
At a press conference on March 1 this year, Tian Weijun, a first-level inspector of the Public Security Administration of the Ministry of Public Security, said that the current illegal sand mining activities in the Yangtze River are more obvious across regions, mostly in inter-provincial and inter-city border waters. Some sand mining vessels also Hidden in inaccessible river Chazhou beaches, tributary estuaries, etc., waiting for opportunities to commit crimes.
He said that illegal sand mining in some waters of the Yangtze River still has the problem of "unstoppable".
Why has the chaos in the sand mining industry been repeatedly banned?
"To put it bluntly, it is driven by profit. The profit per ton is tens of yuan, and the ship can get 10,000 tons in one night. Because it is profitable, it will be desperate and risky." Founder of Sandstone Aggregate Network, China Building Materials Industry Li Hua, director of the Sand and Stone Industry Development Research Center of the Economic Research Society, said to the "China News Weekly".
According to the family of Zeng Zhiping mentioned above, the daily sales of sand and gravel companies reached more than one million yuan during the peak period.
For this reason, the staff of the sand field encountered robbery once.
"It's four or five o'clock in the evening. By this time, I have collected all the money for the day, all in cash. A masked person drove over in a van and waved a knife to demand that all the money be handed over."
Another characteristic of the sand mining industry is its low threshold.
In the sand mining industry, what you dig is what you get, the technical content is not high, and it is easy to be coveted and controlled by all forces.
The industry’s low threshold and huge profits attract a large number of sand-miners, and it is particularly easy to attract those who do not have the skills and are eager to be cheap, and it is also easy to attract those who have certain resources and backgrounds, and have the ability to "just work". These are inherently there. People involved in gangs can easily develop into gangs when they have huge interests and irregular government management.
The verdict of the first instance records a period of Zeng Zhiping's past.
He was originally an employee of the Yaodu Hotel in Zhangshu City. In 2003, he and his brother Zeng Xinping had a battle with his brother Zeng Xinping over a project, resulting in one death and one injury to Zeng Xinping. Zeng Zhiping was sentenced to prison for this.
After being released from prison in 2006, Zeng Zhiping entered the sand mining industry.
The judgment mentioned that when bidding for a new round of sand mining rights in the Zhangshu section of the Gan River in 2009, Zeng Xinping wanted to spend a high price to buy ship owners with sand mining permits to participate in the auction.
After Zeng Zhiping learned of this, he arranged for shareholders to travel with the owner of the ship with the certificate. During the tour, the owner's mobile phone was taken away for unified storage, and the contact between the owner and the outside world was cut off to ensure that Yang Jun, a member of the sand and gravel company, successfully won the bid.
According to the family members of the Zeng brothers, after winning the bid, Yang Jun was threatened by Zeng Xinping to become a shareholder. Soon after he refused, he was chopped to lightly injured Grade A by the local gangster in the sand field.
"Zeng Xinping is a mixed society. He doesn't have a sand field. I told him not to mix up and do other things, but he doesn't listen to me." The family member said.
According to his understanding, after the hacking incident, the local police set up a police office in the sand and gravel company to prevent the sand and gravel company from being "invaded by the mixed society."
According to the record in the aforementioned judgment, Zeng Zhiping was involved in the case and the fuse was Zeng Xinping's report.
Zhang Fengzhen, a professor at the Law School of Jiangsu Normal University, believes that the ineffectiveness of the law is another important reason for repeated prohibitions on illegal sand mining.
He said that at present, the legal regulation of sand mining management has the following problems: Sand mining management has multiple law enforcement and management conflicts; the legal responsibilities and harmful consequences of illegal sand mining are not compatible with the consequences, and the illegal cost is low; the regulatory means are single and it is difficult to form comprehensive prevention and control. The situation of illegal sand mining and the unclear relationship between illegal sand mining and related behaviors.
In addition, according to the analysis of the sand and gravel aggregate network, due to non-standard approval, lax supervision, and large operational space, early sand and gravel companies lacked trust and awe of the law, and solved the problem by "the number of rivers and lakes."
In the process of grass-roots law enforcement, the widespread "no trouble, no trouble, softness" makes sand and gravel enterprises go farther and farther on the road of the rivers and lakes, and even dare not abide by the law, because it is easy to suffer losses due to this. In the long run, the market environment will be harmed. In a vicious circle.
"In the face of illegal mining and digging, the level and intensity of management and control are different in each place. Generally, they have experienced a process from chaos to control and tortuous upward." said Li Hua, the founder of Sandstone Aggregate Network.
At the end of 2016, Jiangxi Province issued the “Regulations on the Management of Sand Mining in River Courses” to increase efforts to combat illegal sand mining. According to the “Regulations”, sand mining not in accordance with the requirements of the sand mining license in river courses. Fines not less than RMB 50,000 and the permit for sand mining in the river channel shall be revoked.
However, there are comments that, compared with the potentially huge profits of sand mining, the cost-effectiveness of being fined is still quite high.
For Zhangshu Sandstone Company, 2016 was a turning point.
This year, Zhangshu City raised the auction standards, Zeng Zhiping's shareholders of Sandstone Company lost their bidding qualifications, and Jinzhou Company replaced them as foreign capital.
However, after the Jinzhou company entered, it recruited some shareholders and patrol members of the sand and gravel company.
In order to curb illegal sand mining at the source, the aforementioned "Regulations" stipulate that the number of sand mining ships and the total annual amount of sand and gravel mining in the river channel should be reduced year by year, and also to solve the unlicensed sand mining that has long plagued local governments along the Ganjiang River and Poyang Lake. Boat problem.
After the promulgation of the "Regulations", Jiangxi encouraged county-level governments to dispose of surplus sand dredgers by cutting and eliminating. As of 2017, the province has invested about 630 million yuan in cutting funds, and a total of 848 sand dredgers have been cut.
Public information shows that in 2016, there were 73 Zhangshu sand mining ships, the most in history, and 47 of them had varying degrees of incomplete licenses.
According to the data provided by the Sand Excavation Office of Zhangshu City to China News Weekly, Zhangshu has experienced two rounds of sand mining boat cutting. The first round started in 2016, and the cutting targets were 47 ships with incomplete licenses; the second round was in 2018. Two-in-one cutting was performed on the remaining 26 certified sand mining vessels.
According to statistics from Zeng Zhiping’s defense lawyer Hu Weixing, during the cutting process, the Zhangshu City Government paid subsidies and rewards to some ship owners of the sand and gravel company, totaling more than 7.78 million yuan.
The aforementioned judgment showed that the first round of cutting involved 9 unlicensed sand mining vessels under the names of some shareholders of the sand and gravel company, and the sand mining activities involving these unlicensed vessels were judged to be illegal mining; in the second round of cutting, Jinzhou Company partially The member "cooperated with the staff of the Sand Excavation Office to illegally cut other people's cranes and sand mining boats on many occasions" and was convicted of provoking trouble.
The sentence of Zeng Zhiping, a member of the sand and gravel company, was related to the general background of the anti-gang operations and the upgraded governance of the sand and gravel industry.
On April 8, 2019, Jiangxi announced the launch of a nine-month joint remediation operation for river sand mining to severely crack down on illegal sand and gravel mining.
A few days later, Zeng Zhiping was taken away for investigation.
Chen Hairong, secretary of the Zhangshu Municipal Legal Committee, said that Zhangshu City has achieved remarkable results in combating the "sand tyrants". Taking Zeng Zhiping's gang-related case as an example, the "six must-checks" on real estate, vehicles, funds, valuable properties, company equity, and securities have been investigated. More than 300 million yuan of cash involved in the case was seized, frozen, and seized.
"Jianghu" is far away?
According to Zeng Zhiping's family, in 2018 Zeng Zhiping has predicted that the change in the sand mining industry is about to come.
"He told us that auctions may not necessarily be held in the future, and may be directly managed by the government." On March 5, 2019, Jinzhou Company obtained the right to mine sand again. A month later, Zeng Zhiping was arrested by the police for alleged collusion in bidding. take away.
“Sand and gravel are the largest, indispensable, and irreplaceable raw material for infrastructure construction. The annual consumption of sand and gravel in the country is 20 billion tons, compared with about 3.8 billion tons of coal, about 1.1 billion tons of steel, and more than 2 billion tons of cement. The total is not more than half of sand and gravel." Hu Youyi, president of the China Sand and Stone Association, told China News Weekly that sand and gravel were mainly collected by river channels before, which did not attract enough attention from relevant departments.
Beginning in 2017, the central environmental protection inspection was launched across the country. The sand and gravel industry experienced an unprecedented storm of remediation, which led to a shortage of sand and gravel. It was only in the second half of 2018 that the price of sand and gravel rose sharply, which attracted attention from all quarters.
Li Hua described the rectification of the sand and gravel industry in recent years as a "big wave scouring the sand", and believes that it has promoted the rapid reshuffle of the industry: "The shortage of market resources has caused prices to rise, investment thresholds are getting higher and higher, and it is difficult for small and micro enterprises to enter. Large companies such as building materials, China Power Construction, China Resources, Conch, Huaxin and other large companies have entered.” Hu Youyi said that under the industry reshuffle, the traditional closed sand and gravel industry chain has been opened, and a new system is being formed. The era has entered the era of big mines".
According to Hu Youyi, as large enterprises entered, the proportion of machine-made sand gradually increased, and tailings, waste rock, construction solid waste, and desalinated sea sand became important sources of sand and gravel.
"In the past, the industry used to collect sand from the rivers and lakes. In the future, the planned amount of sand mining for the rivers and lakes will become smaller and smaller, and gradually become mainly sand mining by dredging." Hu Youyi believes that in this case, sand mining in rivers and lakes Will generally become the past tense.
Li Hua emphasized to China News Weekly that, unlike the trend of large enterprises entering the country, many places are taking the path of nationalization rather than marketization.
"For the local government, based on the sand and gravel resources, there is a profit, which is still a treasure. For financial considerations, they chose to let the local urban investment company take over."
According to incomplete statistics, at present, some cities and counties under the jurisdiction of Jiangxi, Hubei, Hunan, Shaanxi, Henan, and Sichuan have implemented sand mining nationalization.
The "Regulations on the Management of Sand Mining in Rivers of Jiangxi Province" promulgated in 2016 stipulate that people's governments at or above the county level may decide to implement unified management of river sand and gravel resources within their administrative regions.
In 2009, Jiujiang City established the Sand Management Bureau and the state-owned Ganpo Sandstone Company, which was the first in Jiangxi Province for the unified management of sand mining in rivers.
The "Regulations" interpretation article published on the official website of the Jiangxi Provincial Government stated that the government's unified management has effectively avoided vicious competition in river sand mining, as well as disorderly and excessive mining, and explored a new way for illegal sand mining in river channels.
For Zhangshu City, the investigation of Zeng Zhiping's criminal case directly promoted the nationalization of the local sand mining industry.
Peng Xiaoru, director of the sand mining office in Zhangshu City, told China News Weekly that the government took over the sand and gravel company the following month after Zeng Zhiping’s case occurred.
In May 2020, Zhangshu City Development and Investment Company established a wholly-owned subsidiary Zhangshu Ganyuan Sand and Stone Co., Ltd., and announced the unified management and unified operation of the city's sand and gravel business.
Peng Xiaoru explained that governance mainly consists of two links: procurement and sales. The procurement is the access mechanism and has been controlled. Now the sand dredger is equivalent to working for the government; sales involve profits and are owned by the state.
"In this way, the soil that breeds black and evil is completely stripped away, and no one can participate in it."
However, the nationalization of the right to sand mining in river channels also caused concerns among industry insiders.
"Local urban investment companies are usually local shadow banks, which easily form a space for power rent-seeking. From the perspective of the overall environment, there are situations where there are both athletes and referees in some places, which will definitely affect the entry of high-quality enterprises and the regulation of the market. Cause some obstacles." Li Hua mentioned.
"China News Weekly" field investigation found that chaos in the sand and gravel industry, such as sand hoarding, stealing, and reselling, still exists in Zhangshu City.
In May 2020, Ganyuan Company raised the price of sand and gravel within its jurisdiction from 70 yuan/square to 170 yuan/square.
At the same time, the local area has added a "sand ticket" link, requiring sand buyers to obtain sand tickets through the community or the sand mining office before they can buy sand.
Many interviewees questioned that the establishment of the sand ticket link provided room for the reselling of sand or sand tickets, which in turn increased the price of sand and gravel.
An interviewed ship owner said that a friend of his recently renovated the house and the price of sand was 280 yuan/cubic meter.
In addition, in contrast to the early internal transportation of sand, Zhangshu is now facing the problem of internal transportation of sand.
According to local media reports, due to the huge price discrepancies between camphor trees and neighboring counties and cities such as Xinyu and Gao'an that do not produce sand, and the sharp contradiction between demand and supply in the sand and gravel market, the supply exceeds supply, and some speculators have shipped sand and gravel for reselling. Disturb the market price of sand and gravel.
For this reason, Zhangshu City requires that sand transport vehicles must be equipped with the "Riverway Sand and Stone Mining Management Form" issued by the Municipal Sand Excavation Office, one for each vehicle, and one for the transportation of sand and gravel.
A joint law enforcement team led by the Municipal Sand Excavation Office and composed of the Municipal Water Conservancy Bureau, Public Security Bureau, and Traffic Police Brigade has also been set up locally.
A law enforcement officer in Zhangshu City lamented that illegal sand mining personnel who transport sand and gravel to other places can often sell them at twice to three times the high price. "Faced with the temptation of high profits, they are as crazy as drug dealers."
(In the text, Bai Jianxiong is a pseudonym)
China News Weekly, Issue 15, 2021
Statement: The publication of the "China News Weekly" manuscript is authorized in writing