Plastic sheeting laid on the lakebeds of Yuanmingyuan (the Old Summer Palace) began to be removed on Monday, according to yesterday's Beijing News.

Tang, from the gardens' administration, said the work was being conducted in line with the requirements of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), which said on July 7 that most of the sheeting should be removed.

Work in the Fuhai and Changchunyuan gardens was already in full swing on Monday afternoon despite the rainy weather, whilst in Yichunyuan rail fences were being set up in preparation for imminent work there.

According to the workers, the lakes are being weeded and sludge removed before the sheeting is taken back up, followed by refilling with earth and water.

Tang said they will grow lotus on the renewed lake bed.

Yuanmingyuan, the emperor's private pleasure garden, was founded in the early 18th century and was once known as "Versailles of the East" before being destroyed by British and French infantry in 1860.

Its administration was criticized after Zhang Zhengchun, from Lanzhou University's Life Sciences School in Gansu Province, discovered plastic sheeting being put down on drained lakebeds at a cost of US$3.6 million on March 22.

Park officials said it would save water by stopping leakage, but Zhang and other academics said many plant and animal species in and around the lake would die and the water stagnate, and that it could also affect Beijing's already low groundwater levels.

After Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau said the project had not received approval from environmental authorities before commencing the previous September, the SEPA called for it to stop on March 31.

It was restarted and completed in the first week of April despite this, and a public hearing, the first of its kind, was held on April 13 with park authorities, scientists and environmentalists taking part.

In July, the SEPA upheld the conclusions of an assessment by Tsinghua University and ordered that most of the sheeting should be removed and natural materials such as clay used to help prevent seepage instead.

(Xinhua News Agency August 17, 2005)