The Yangtze River, the longest in Asia and the third longest in
the world, is expected to benefit 800 million people after the
South-to-North Water Diversion Project is realized. However, the
river on which so many already rely has suffered severe pollution
far beyond many people's imagination.
By 2003, industrial and urban daily wastewater exceeded 25
billion tons along the Yangtze, 90 percent of which was untreated,
and the drinking water of more than 500 cities threatened.
During a meeting on October 9, Wang Jirong, vice director of the
State Environmental Protection Administration, pointed out that the
Yangtze accounts for one third of China's water resources, one
third of its cities and one third of its discharged wastewater. Yet
its wastewater processing rate is lower than the national average,
at only 10 percent.
Ai Feng, a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative
Conference and president of the Chinese Academy of Development and
Research, conducted an in-depth inspection in 2003.
According to Ai, the river is facing six big crises:
deforestation, silting, earlier dry seasons, degraded drinking
water, threatened wildlife, damage to sluices and power stations,
and damage to the river's natural self-cleaning processes.
"The Yangtze River will become the second Yellow River in 10
years if it isn't protected in a timely way," Ai warned.
Sichuan's
provincial Population, Resources and Environmental Committee (PREC)
commissioned researchers who discovered that many industrial
enterprises established in 1960s-1970s have become the main sources
of river pollution.
But there is insufficient planning and not enough motivation to
clean up their act, whilst the law provides no consistent redress
and offers too many loopholes.
Currently, 62 counties in Sichuan have no independent
environmental supervision mechanisms, and the existing 36
county-level mechanisms are unable to enforce environmental law,
experts said.
Yang Zichun, deputy director of the PREC, said that there should
be greater environmental awareness and adherence to decisions to
protect river ecology, as well as better legal and political
mechanisms to encourage good practice and punish bad.
Sichuan's water resources account for one third of the Yangtze's
total, said Yang, and water quality in the Three Gorges Reservoir
and the river's lower reaches is directly determined by that in
Sichuan.
(Sichuan Daily, translated by Li Jingrong for
China.org.cn November 27, 2004)
