Carrying a Jurassic on me
Chapter 1729 - 821: Gas Station Opening

Chapter 1729: Chapter 821: Gas Station Opening

The "afternoon meeting" had more substance than the evening meetings, and ultimately, not all of it ended up in the ’live broadcast’.

So when Yan Fei left with Xu Xiaoyan, it was already dinner time. There was originally dinner available, especially for someone like Boss Yan who never skimps on advertising investment—they would definitely save a spot for him.

But Yan Fei didn’t want to eat out. Nowadays, the flavors of dishes are becoming bland, with most relying on seasonings. For someone with such a sensitive palate, like him, whenever he could eat at home, he would go back and cook for himself, as he really disliked the taste outside.

However, the lunch the next day couldn’t be eaten at home, nor was it suitable for bringing his wife along. So he had to go to the Wanlong banquet alone.

The Environmental Protection Bureau has always been an underrated unit because nowadays, the focus is on economic efficiency. Whenever they investigate an area, it always displeases a certain part of the local community.

If they need to visit a place, some locals will pay lip service or intentionally hide things, which happens frequently. So their main job is essentially to take the blame. They get scolded for water pollution, air quality issues... but if they really want to work seriously, they face strong resistance from vested interests.

This is unlike another unit, the Meteorological Bureau, which needs to handle the paperwork for setting up gas stations. Whether they get scolded or not depends entirely on whether the weather cooperates—in fact, being scolded is so common that they are used to it and don’t care anymore.

When Director Liu arrived, he brought a young assistant. He was a bit surprised that Yan Fei came alone, but it didn’t matter. For them, having attended numerous dinner meetings, it wasn’t about the meal itself; the key was to discuss the matters at hand.

After handing over the paperwork for Yan Fei’s gas station, Director Liu took the opportunity to inquire about the situation on Yan Fei’s side. The information Director Liu had was obtained from his local counterparts; he feared the locals might deliberately withhold some facts—which he had seen happen too often. The information reported sounded wonderful, but seeing it in person was often shocking.

Yan Fei was confident about this: "You can go any time, no need for much preparation. My place is built around the river, with one site on River Heart Island. To check for environmental compliance, just look at the river’s water quality. However, there used to be a paper factory upstream, which only shut down a few years ago. If there’s an opportunity, Director Liu could send someone to check the water quality first. Honestly, I’ve always wanted to do this, but..."

Director Liu then relaxed by half.

If the water had been polluted, it wouldn’t improve overnight, unlike companies that emit exhaust gases. Some companies’ chimneys spew black smoke daily, but when you check, they switch to white smoke. But the locals know better, and it surely can’t be used as a model for promotion. Otherwise, protests might occur, bringing scrutiny onto your environmental department.

Because of the differences between water pollution and air pollution, Yan Fei’s confidence was reassuring. Moreover, Director Liu had previously conducted detailed investigations on a few targets he selected, and now he just needed confirmation from the parties involved.

Coincidentally, Boss Li was also there today and brought along a bottle of wine for a few drinks—being old hands in the jianghu, he knew when to give face and wouldn’t skimp on it, especially since Director Liu’s department was in charge.

For Director Liu, one meal was insufficient to reach a final conclusion.

So after dining with Yan Fei, he immediately made a phone call. By evening, a few bottles of water with labels such as upstream and downstream discharge water were delivered.

These samples were quickly sent to the testing lab, and results were processed overnight.

The next morning, Director Liu looked at the monitoring report and got angry: "This is not how work should be done. No wonder we get scolded every day—look at these results! The upstream can detect some pollution, yet a mere hundred meters downstream shows no pollution at all. Was there a mistake in the water delivery or..."

The pollution he referred to was about meeting or not meeting standards. With current technology, it’s impossible to require all industrial discharges to meet drinking water standards perfectly; even in the coming years, it won’t be possible. As long as the environmental impact is within acceptable limits, it’s considered compliant.

This also shows the significant harm caused by the paper factory. Although the pollution source has been cut off for years, slight pollution still can be detected in the water quality.

"Director Liu, it’s like this." The person delivering the monitoring report, disregarding etiquette, hurriedly interrupted him. "After we got the results, we understood the situation here. The conditions are quite unique, as south of Sancha River Town, three rivers converge south of the town."

"The River Heart Island construction is located in the polluted river. By the time it reaches downstream, the three rivers converge, with the river water being diluted and filtered by the riverbed sediment..."

"The pollution level you see is from the upstream water quality of the polluted river. In fact, by the time it gets to the River Heart Island area, its impact can be ignored. Past the downstream..."

"Alright, alright, I understand, you can leave now!" Only then did Director Liu remember that Yan Fei had indeed mentioned this yesterday. When he saw the results, he mistakenly thought that the staff were frustrated with working overtime and weren’t serious enough, leading to this misunderstanding.