Officials in southern China have denied reports that [Heping] chemical plant which was ordered to shut down after heavy metal waste killed dozens of farm animals had resumed operations…The plant suspended its production in August by order of the Ministry of Environmental Protection...The company started detoxifying hazardous chromium residues in late September and will begin operations in a second waste processing facility in the first half of 2012, according to China Daily…[T]he chromium-contaminated waste has still been piled around the site without safeguards against seepage and has thus threatened water and soil... Xinhua reported that the plant had apparently started up again according to local residents and its own reporters, triggering speculation that it had resumed production in defiance of its ban…