Here's an intriguing case study of an environmental lawyer helping villagers fight a lawsuit against an ore mine owned by the provincial government in the Yang Chow village, China. Villagers in nearby areas are affected by the lack of treatment of mine effluent; the villagers crop's yield and quality have been affected, as well as their health.

It was reported that the river water contaminated by the mine effluent is high in some heavy metals (i.e. lead and cadmium), however existing technologies are capable of removing them from the effluent wastewater. One of the common methods of heavy metal removal is chemical precipitation, in which precipitants are added to raise the pH of water decreasing the soluble portion of heavy metals, then the precipitated heavy metals can be removed by conventional solids removal techniques. This illustrates that the corporations are negligent to not provide appropriate treatments even though they are available and that authorities are not taking enough actions to enforce existing environmental laws. The corporation stands to damage its own reputation in addition to setting itself up for potential liabilities in the future.

The villagers and their environment are paying the bills accrued by rapid economic development while reaping none of its benefits.  How much monetary value can be assigned to the human health and environmental damages caused by careless economic exploits?