A much-needed update to the existing standards for drinking
water, as well as 13 relevant inspection methods, will be
officially implemented on July 1, sources with Ministry of Health
and National Bureau of Standards said.
The number of monitoring indicators will increase from 35 to 106
under the new standards, which were designed to comprehensively
improve drinking water safety.
Earlier this week, Taihu Lake near Wuxi, a city in East China's
Jiangsu Province, suffered a massive outbreak of algae, which left
millions of people with a severely contaminated water supply.
But the water crisis, which experts believe will last for
several months, is not an isolated case.
In 2005, a toxic spill in the Songhua River seriously affected
drinking water for four days in Harbin, an urban center at China's
northern frontier.
Water pollution is also a major concern in other parts of the
country.
Existing drinking water standards were issued in 1985, years
before large-scale industrialization projects flourished in the
country, boosting local economies while simultaneously polluting
drinking water sources.
The contamination emerged as a national public health issue in
the 1990s, as did nationwide discussions on how to amend the
existing standards.
The revised regulations were initially scheduled to come into
force on June 1, 2005, but they were not even released until a year
and a half later, in December 2006.
Wang Zhansheng, a retired professor at the Chinese Academy of
Water Supply and Drainage, said the country's drinking water
standards lag behind international norms by at least 20 years.
The current standards include only two indicators of organic
substances - none for algae toxins - and exclude a number of key
contaminants, such as nitrites and bromates, Wang said.
Consequently, the vast majority of poisonous substances in
drinking water are somehow legally considered safe, he said.
Public health authorities' work in establishing drinking water
norms and standards is not a static one, "because as changes occur
in drinking-water supply practice, in technologies and in materials
available ... so health priorities and responses to them will also
change," the third and current edition of the World Health
Organization (WHO)'s guidelines for drinking water quality
states.
An unnamed senior researcher with the department of water
environment at the China institute of water resources and
hydropower research considers the new standards a sign of progress,
but thinks much more remains to be done.
"The government has invested lots of money in improving drinking
water quality, but the results have been less than rewarding," she
told China Daily.
For example, more than 6 billion yuan ($785 million) has been
earmarked for the cleaning up of Dianchi Lake in Kunming, capital
of Yunnan, where the once cleanest of all waters has fallen victim
to a year after year of industrial waste.
But the investments underachieved, she said.
While claiming that human activity is the root cause of water
degradation, the researcher said an update to the standards must
accompany detailed inspection measures as well as procedures to
ensure conservation and protection of water sources, without which
authorities will only scratch the surface.
Ultimately, the amended drinking water standards should be a new
beginning rather than the endpoint.
In the future, "legislation should go hand-in-hand with law
enforcement," she said.
(China Daily June 2, 2007)