10-year effort to save river makes little progress (Xinhua) Updated: 2004-06-07 14:50
China's ten-year-long endeavor to relieve and prevent severe pollution in the
Huaihe River, for which the Chinese government input more than 60 billion yuan
(US$7.2 billion), made little progress, according to a senior official from the
State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA).
Xie Zhenhua, director of the SEPA, said that thanks to the country's
painstaking efforts, the GDP (gross domestic product) of the Huaihe River valley
grew by 134 percent from 1996 to 2003, while the COD discharge in the river
dropped by 50 percent.
However, Xie said, some enterprises along the river still unlawfully
discharged sewage into the river's tributaries, making the river's pollution
still severe.
Statistics from the Huaihe Water Resources Committee show that the river's
water quality this May was as bad as its worst level in history, which occurred
in the 1990s.
Wang Jijie, vice-director of the SEPA, blamed the river's pollution for
excessive water resources development, slow industrial structure adjustment
along the river and scarcity of sewage processing factories.
He said the Huaihe River's water resources only accounted for 3.4 percent of
the country's total, while the river valley's farmland took up to 15.2 percent
of the country's total and its population occupied 16.2 percent of the country's
total. Therefore,about 60 percent of the river's water resources have been
tapped for drinking, farmland irrigation and industrial production, making the
river's self-purification ability very weak.
Heavy pollution industries are still the industrial pillars of the river
valley. Nowadays, the paper-making industry, chemical industry, beverage
industry, textile industry and food industry have discharged 78.4 percent and
94.2 percent of the river's total COD and ammonia nitrogen, said Wang.
In addition, the processing ability of sewage processing factories along the
river is far short of the actual need, Wang continued.
Wang demanded local governments to adjust the industrial structure as soon as
possible and arrange agricultural and industrial production according to the
river's capacity.
He also urged relevant laws and regulations to be enacted in an attempt to
legalize the river's water protection.
The Huaihe River, the third largest river of China, is home to one sixth of
the country's population and flows through the provinces of Henan, Hubei, Anhui
and Jiangsu.
