In response to Mr. Zhang's pleas, workers from the local environmental protection bureau arrived and tested the river water and found it highly alkaline.

Chen Hongming, a deputy head of Haining's environmental protection bureau, said the factory's waste disposal had failed the pollution tests since April.

Many historical sites, including those designated by the city's historical protection bureau, were damaged or destroyed in the mayhem.

He said a son-in-law of a Lianhua chief executive once even headed the city's environmental protection bureau.

Robert Hernan, an assistant attorney general, said the environmental protection bureau would make its own study of the spill before taking any legal action.

"The state is being kept out of these apparently secret meetings," said Peter Lehner, chief of the environmental protection bureau in the state attorney general's office.

"Building a plant would be expensive but not break-the-bank expensive," said Judith Enck, a policy adviser in the attorney general's environmental protection bureau.

The bridegroom, also 35, is an assistant New York State attorney general in Manhattan, working in the environmental protection bureau.

For years, it has complained that local environmental protection bureaus are accountable to local officials rather than the state agency.

Air pollution along Canal Street is already twice the federal recommended level, said Peter H. Lehner, chief of the attorney general's environmental protection bureau.