Beijing is confident it can meet the increased demand for water
during the 2008 Olympic Games, city water officials have said.
According to sources from the Beijing Water Works Group, once
the Beijing-Shijiazhuang section of the middle route of the
South-to-North Water Diversion Project opens next year, it will
provide Beijing with 400 million cubic meters of water a year.
With this additional supply, the capital's daily requirement of
3 million cubic meters would be easily satisfied.
The group said in a press release on Wednesday that it has
earmarked 2 billion yuan (US$256 million) to upgrade the city's
water system to guarantee sufficient supply during next year's
Games, the Xinhua News Agency reported.
New water-pipe systems have already been installed in the
Olympic zone and surrounding areas to ensure the provision of safe
drinking water.
Beijing's water-supply network will reach, or even surpass,
Olympic standards before the start of the Games, said Jiao
Zhizhong, head of the Beijing Water Authority.
"Tap water in the Olympic gyms and the athletes' village will be
safe to drink," Jiao told Beijing Youth Daily. "Beijing's
old water pipes are being replaced at a rate of 300 kilometers a
year."
The arrival of large numbers of tourists and athletes next
summer will put enormous pressure on the already parched city.
However, the 307-kilometer-long Beijing-Shijiazhuang section of
the diversion project, which will link four reservoirs in Hebei Province with Beijing, should ease water
shortages in the capital. The section is expected to be completed
by the end of the year, with trials set to begin next April, water
resource officials said.
Zhang Jiyao, director of the State Council Office of the
South-to-North Water Diversion Project, said that priority must be
given to save water to ensure the new supply is sufficient to meet
the high demand.
"Efforts must be made to raise people's awareness in this
regard, and prevent water being lost through leaky pipes or poor
irrigation," Zhang was quoted as saying by People's
Daily.
Beijing Water Works Group has earmarked 170 million yuan (US$22
million) this year to repair leaky water pipes, Xinhua
reported.
The ultimate goal of the middle route of the diversion project
is to transfer water from the Hanjiang River, a tributary of the
Yangtze in Hubei Province, to North China via Henan and Hebei provinces by 2010.
The project comprises three canals, each running more than 1,000
kilometers across the eastern, central and western parts of the
country.
These are designed to divert water from the upper, middle and
lower reaches of the Yangtze River to the drought-prone north.
The scheme, which is scheduled for completion around 2050, is
expected to cost nearly 500 billion yuan (US$62 billion).
Once finished, it will be capable of delivering 44.8 billion
cubic meters of water annually, according to figures from the
Ministry of Water Resources.
(China Daily March 16, 2007)