A senior Chinese official on Wednesday ordered strict monitoring
of the polluted Songhua River as the spring thaw approaches.
Hua Jianmin, secretary-general of the State Council, made an
inspection tour on April 11 and 12 of northeast China's Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces, to oversee
anti-pollution work on the river.
Hua ordered the relevant regions and departments to step up
monitoring and analysis of water quality, increase inspections, and
to immediately make public the results through newspapers or the
Internet.
"Better monitoring and protection of waterways will ensure safer
drinking water supplies," said Hua, also a State Councilor.
He called for tighter controls on the treatment and discharge of
waste water from companies along the river, the prevention of used
firefighting water and industrial waste from flowing into rivers
and lakes.
Safer work practices would help curb river or soil pollution
caused by production accidents, as would the formulation of
emergency contingency plans, he said.
The plan to prevent and control pollution in the drainage area
of the Songhua River, enacted by the State Council last month, was
significant to China's social and economic development.
Preventing future contamination was equally important, he
said.
Hua visited environmental monitoring centers of the two
provinces and Jilin Petrochemical Co., the company that suffered an
explosion on Nov. 13 last year, releasing 100 ton of benzene
compounds into the Songhua River in the worst river pollution
incident since the founding of P.R.China in 1949.
(Xinhua News Agency April 13, 2006)