Xiong Demin could not have foreseen that the mine he worked at for 32 years would leave his home village poisoned and hundreds of residents, including himself and his wife, stricken with cancer…The 71-year-old retired mechanic and his wife…blame [the cancer] on arsenic pollution left by the mining and processing of realgar…near Heshan village in Hunan province…In 2010, 157 villagers from Heshan, with a population of about 1,500, had died of cancer caused by arsenic poisoning in the previous two decades, and another 190 had developed cancer due to arsenic poisoning, the villagers wrote in a letter to the local government...seeking compensation and aid…China has many so-called cancer villages, blamed by residents on industrial pollution. While the central government says it is dedicated to protecting the environment, the tax receipts from polluting plants are often a vital source of income for local governments…