Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province has shut down 110
polluting enterprises to curb pollution in the Songhua River.
The provincial government inspected 4,061 enterprises that emit
pollution, shut down 110 and suspended 173 in a three-month
campaign which ended early July, said Li Ping, head of the
Heilongjiang provincial bureau of environmental protection.
The Songhua River was seriously polluted when 100 tons of
benzene-related pollutants flowed into the river after a chemical
plant explosion in Jilin city on the upper reaches of the river in
2005.
The contamination forced Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang
Province, to temporarily suspend water supply to 3.8 million
people.
The pollution also raised concerns in Russia as the river
empties into the Heilongjiang River that divides China and
Russia.
Jinlin city in Jilin Province has installed a sewage treatment
plant that cost 620 million yuan so 90 percent of domestic and
industrial sewage can be processed.
Mingshui county, Heilongjiang, has also shut down two
foreign-invested enterprises, which accounted for one third of the
county's foreign direct investment.
Automatic devices have been put into use for real-time
monitoring of the water quality of the Songhua River and Heilong
River.
Wang Xun, an entrepreneur from the coastal city of Wenzhou who
set up a corn starch plant in Mingshui this year, invested 15
million yuan to add an environmental protection facility to the
plant.
"The local government has been telling me that environmental
protection is the responsibility of enterprises and the
prerequisite of sustainable development," Wang said.
The Chinese government drew up a plan last year to curb
pollution in the tainted Songhua River and aims to make 90 percent
of water drinkable by 2010. The plan includes 222 pollution control
projects with a combined investment of 13.36 billion yuan (1.77
billion U.S. dollars).
Almost 40 percent of pollution control projects have been
completed or are well underway, according to an official with the
State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA).
Three northeastern provinces shut down 42 factories failing to
control pollution in the Songhua River valley in the first six
months of this year, reducing the pollutant discharges by about
6,327 tons in terms of the chemical oxygen demand, the official
said.
Li Ping said that water in Songhua River has shown sign of
improvement.
The official said water quality temporarily reached Class Three,
which is drinkable, last month and was "better than the
corresponding period last year" in Sanjiangkou, where the Songhua
River joins Heilong River before it flows downstream into Harbin,
capital of Heilongjiang and the Russian Far East city of
Khabarovsk.
The improvement in water quality was also attributed to a marked
decrease in rainfall this summer.
Fish from Sanjiangkou tasted better than in the previous years,
local fishermen were quoted by the official as saying.
(Xinhua News Agency September 21, 2007)