Local governments in central China's Three Gorges area have organized a clean-up of floating litter in the giant reservoir on the Yangtze River. Since floating material can be a lingering problem, the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) is also planning to establish a long-term system to tackle it.

Since the Three Gorges Reservoir began storing water in June, large amounts of floating materials have gathered in it, affecting navigation and threatening its generating units. Now, Hubei Province and Chongqing Municipality, where the reservoir is located, and the Three Gorges Project Development Corporation have organized teams to clean up the floating debris.

Wanzhou District of Chongqing borders the reservoir. Since it was formed, the cleaning process has not stopped. Local environmental official Long Rencheng says the floating materials are mostly natural substance, as garbage had already been cleaned before water storage.

"They are not plastic bags, or beer bottles as people may imagine. All these have gone. They are mainly grass and stalks, some planks, as well as a small amount of foamed plastic. After being collected, they are immediately sent to rubbish treatment plants."

The clean-up is being strictly supervised by the State Environmental Protection Administration. Liu Guohua is one of the supervisors.

"From the results of our inspection, we have found that cleaning-up work is going better than expected. So far there has been no large scale gathering of floating litter."

Experts say that floating debris can be a long-term problem, as in every summer, concentrated rainfall in the area may cause landslides and mud-rock flow, which in turn will bring different items into the reservoir. However, the present cleaning is only a temporary undertaking.

Liu Guohua says with this in mind, the central and local governments are considering the establishment of a long-term system to handle the cleaning up work.

"Next, we are going to set up a long-term system to deal with this problem. There will be a special organ in charge, a professional cleaning team, professional equipment and most importantly, financial support."

He says waste discharge will be strictly controlled, and local governments will be in charge of the cleaning work in different parts of the reservoir.

(CRI. July 18, 2003)