XIAOXIN, China (Reuters) - Nothing in Wu Wenyong's rural childhood hinted he would end up on a hospital bed aged 15, battling two kinds of cancer.

Born to poor farmers in Xiaoxin, a dusty village of low brick houses in southwestern Yunnan province, he paddled in the Nanpan River as a child and later helped his parents tend rice.

About 3 km (two miles) from Wu's home stands a three-storey high hill of chromium slag produced from the Yunnan Luliang Peace Technology Company. The runoff from chromium-6, listed as a carcinogen by the World Health Organization, seeped into the Nanpan, turning its waters yellow.

And the toxic water and earth that Wu's family blames for his condition have become a battleground over how far China will bend to letting courts punish pollution.

The chromium hill is a rallying point for a coalition of environmental advocacy groups, who have filed a public interest lawsuit for residents of Xiaoxin and nearby Xinglong in a special environment court.

Last September, Wu's face ballooned and tumour-like growths developed on his neck. He was diagnosed with thymoma, cancer of the thymus gland in the chest, and with leukaemia.

"The pollution is quite terrible. I've heard stories of cattle dying," Wu said, from his hospital bed in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan. "I've seen the water in the river and it's all yellow. I've never drunk the water."

Beset by growing public alarm and protests about pollution, China's leaders have reached for a remedy they have otherwise shown little appetite for: letting the courts decide. Those courts come under the control of the ruling Communist Party, but environmental campaigners spot a welcome, if narrow opening.

Web link: http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFTRE80F0RW20120116

Environmental advocacy groups have filed a public interest lawsuit in a special environmental court for residents suffering from chromium pollution in China’s Yunnan province. In a country where non-governmental organizations have long been treated with suspicion by authorities, collective litigation by organizations with no government backing is breaking new ground in the environmental courts. The groups want the privately owned company responsible for the chromium pollution to establish a 10 million yuan ($1.6 million) compensation fund for an environmental clean-up.

Web link: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/46011920