The Chinese government will invest a total of 39.2 billion yuan
(US$4.82 billion) over the next seven years, in a bid to clean up
the mighty Yangtze River, officials of the Ministry of Water
Resources announced Sunday in Chongqing, Southwest China.
The efforts will concentrate on water pollution control in the
Three Gorges Reservoir area, as well as in the upper reaches of the
Yangtze.
The quality of water in the upper reaches of the river is expected
to be, and remain, at grade two once the programme is finished in
2009 - when the construction of the Three Gorges Project is
completed, water officials were quoted by Xinhua News Agency
yesterday as saying.
Water quality is graded on a scale of one to five, with grade one
representing the best quality and grade five the worst.
Currently the river water, although still able to meet the required
standard for drinking, has suffered considerably from various
pollutants in recent years.
Experts warned that soon after the Three Gorges Reservoir begins to
store water, the rapid increase of various pollutants will pose a
great challenge to the reservoir environment, as the self-cleaning
capacity will be much weakened because of the slower flow of the
water.
Based on careful research over the past 10 years, experts and
officials have developed a programme of water pollution prevention
and control for the upper reaches of the Yangtze.
The programme provides comprehensive solutions for pollution
control in the provinces of Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan on the
upper reaches of the river and for Chongqing Municipality and Hubei
Province, located in the reservoir area.
By
2009, all cities and towns will have their own rubbish disposal
facilities, which will ensure that 100 per cent of waste can be
centrally disposed, said Zhang Yong, deputy director of Chongqing
Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau.
To
reduce the level of discharge of industrial pollutants, more than
1,300 industrial factories in the reservoir area will be relocated
or rectified.
When it is finally completed the reservoir of the Three Gorges,
which is more than 600 kilometers long and covers an area of over
1,000 square kilometers, will submerge 300,000 square meters of
public toilets, more than 40,000 tombs, and more than 4,000
hospitals, slaughter houses and other sites, all containing toxic
materials.
All these potentially hazardous sites have been carefully logged
and will be scientifically treated in various ways, officials
guaranteed .
Plans have also been drawn up to solve the problem caused by ships
which are a major source of pollution.
To
address this all ships passing through the reservoir area, which
has some 7,000 registered ships, will be required to have special
equipment to prevent oil seepage while passenger ships will have to
discard all waste when they dock, to ensure that it is disposed of
correctly.
To
prevent dirty water from being discharged into the reservoir,
Chongqing has already built 19 sewage and five rubbish disposal
centers, accounting for 86 per cent and 54 per cent of the planned
total, said Zhang.
The disposal capacity of all the newly built centers will be much
higher than that of the existing ones in most of China's cities,
Zhang added.
(China Daily November 18, 2002)