The cleanliness of the main body of water in China's Three
Gorges Dam area has improved a little but water quality in several
branches is getting worse, said the State Environmental Protection
Administration (SEPA) on Tuesday.
The water quality in the reservoir and higher reaches of the
Yangtze River remained at category III -- okay for drinking,
aquatic breeding, fisheries and swimming, SEPA said in a
newly-amended plan to tackle water pollution in the Three Gorges
Dam area and higher reaches of the Yangtze.
But several branches of the river in this area were becoming
less capable of supporting the microbes and plant life that make
water fit for drinking and for fish and plants to grow in it, the
document said.
In September at a forum in Wuhan in the central Hubei Province,
Chinese officials and experts admitted the Three Gorges Dam project
had caused an array of ecological ills, including more frequent
landslides and pollution.
In 2001, the country adopted a 10-year plan to prevent and
relieve water pollution in this hydrological project but found
flaws after five years of implementation.
"The target of chemical oxygen demand (COD) set for 2005 was not
fulfilled," SEPA said.
The COD in body of water in this area, a major index of water
quality, was supposed to reduce from 1.356 million tons in 2000
to1.028 million tons in 2005. It stayed at 1.363 million tons.
Although several big waste water plants were built and polluted
factories closed or equipped with remediation facilities, some
facilities have not been running at full capacity. In addition,
two-thirds of the ecological conservation projects in the plan have
not yet started, the document said.
The facilities to monitor environmental changes in the whole
area were also not in place, it added.
SEPA warned of environmental challenges in the next few
years.
The Yangtze's main stream flows along the reservoir more slowly
than before. This restrains the water body from self cleaning, thus
expanding polluted areas, the document said.
The tide beach, due to the reservoir's seasonal water level
change, will expand to 300 square kilometers when the water level
rises to 175 meters next year from the current 156 meters. This
area will be vulnerable to pollution, it said.
SEPA and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC)
jointly finished the amendment to the plan last month, aiming to
cope with the challenges.
?About 460 projects will be built in next three years with
an investment of 22.82 billion yuan (3.13 billion U.S. dollars),
according to the plan.
To ensure the implementation, the plan listed several
supervision policies. An annual assessment will be made on projects
under construction, water quality, pollution volume and
management.
"Government officials in charge will be denounced and punished
if serious environmental damage happened due to administrative
flaws or they try to interfere with enforcement of environmental
departments," the document said.
The public is encouraged to supervise the environmental
management and report problems. "Citizens, corporations and other
organizations shall turn to the court for compensation if being
threatened by water pollution."
The China Three Gorges Project Corporation, the dam operator,
also introduced its own environmental remediation projects this
year. They include a new water plant, a waste water processing
factory, a processing ground to handle algae blooms and silt in
dammed water and a breeding center for protected fish species in
the upper reaches of the river.
The dam, which stands at 185 meters above sea level and holds 39
billion cubic meters of water, began construction in 1994 to tame
periodic devastating floods on the Yangtze and generate clean
energy.
The 180 billion yuan project reduces the threat of floods on the
Yangtze from once every 10 years to once every 100 years.
The government has invested heavily in programs designed to
restore and conserve the ecology of the Three Gorges area in recent
years, including 12 billion yuan spent on trying to harness
geological disasters such as landslides.
It has also closed or relocated 1,500 manufacturing ventures,
constructed more than 70 sewage disposal and waste treatment plants
and resettled about 70,000 people from disaster-prone areas.
(Xinhua News Agency February 20, 2008)
