Beijing environmental authorities on Thursday suspended the
controversial project to coat the lakebeds at Yuanmingyuan Park --
the Old Summer Palace -- with impermeable membrane.
Environmentalists and citizens objected to the project, calling
it an ecological disaster that would reduce the natural seepage of
water into the ground, affecting Beijing's underground water supply
and turning the lakes into "dead pools."
Park administrators, however, said that coating the 133 hectares
of lakebed to prevent seepage would save more than 1.5 million
cubic meters of water annually.
The Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau announced
on Wednesday that the project had not received approval from any
environmental protection authorities. It is now suspended as
authorities determine whether to allow it to proceed.
The scheme, work on which started in mid-February and would have
soon been finished, was first publicly questioned by Zhang
Zhengchun, an ecology professor of?Lanzhou
University.
Zhang visited Yuanmingyuan on March 22, World Water Day, only to
find that the water in most of the lakes had been drained out.
Throngs of workers were covering the lakebeds with a layer of white
plastic film that will not decay even if buried for more than 80
years.
"The project is a disaster to the surrounding environment and to
the heritage site itself," said Zhang.
The old park, originally built in 1709 and burned down by
British and French troops in 1860, is a state-protected heritage
site.
Mei Ninghua, director of the Beijing Bureau of Cultural
Heritage, told China Daily on Thursday that any work on
cultural relics sites must be undertaken with caution and must not
destroy the original surroundings.
The park's administrative office justified the project as a last
resort to save water, as more than 2.5 million cubic meters of
water from the lakes seep into the ground every year. Zhu Hong,
vice director of the administrative office, said most of the lakes
were on the point of drying up for more than seven months each
year.
However, Peking University's Professor Wu Bihu said earlier that
the membrane would prevent the water from seeping into the ground,
disturbing Beijing's underground water system.
Last summer, Vice Mayor Lu Hao called ground subsidence
resulting from water depletion in underground aquifers a "major
threat" to the city.
(China Daily, China.org.cn April 1, 2005)