An advisor to the State Council’s South-to-North
Water Diversion Project has said that readjusting water pollution
goals for the Huaihe River is in line with government
commitments.
Xia Qing, an expert in prevention and control of
water pollution, told Lifeweek magazine later in March, “The
government is aiming to solve drinkable water problems
pragmatically in order to build a harmonious society. To invest
limited funds in dealing with this urgent task could gain support
from all walks of life.”
In the government’s work report to the National
People’s Congress on March 5, Premier Wen Jiabao promised to
“ensure people have clean water, fresh air and a better environment
in which to live and work.”
While he did not mention the Huaihe specifically,
Xia, also head of the expert panel of the GEF Ocean and River
Programs Office affiliated to the State Environmental Protection
Administration, maintains that the spirit of the government’s
message concurs with proposals to adapt its pollution targets.
The Huaihe is the country’s most severely polluted
river and, home to one-sixth of the population, its valley has the
highest population density.
The State Council issued a provisional regulation
on prevention and control of water pollution there in August 1995,
the first for a specific river; in June the next year, it ratified
it, announcing that the Huaihe would be cleaned up over the next
ten years.
That initial plan was to reduce COD (chemical
oxygen demand)-related pollutant discharge to 368,000 tons by 2000.
COD is used to gauge pollutants from discharged waste such as
sewage and industrial effluent.
“COD discharge was reduced from 1.5 million tons in
1994 to 1.23 million in 2004, down by 250,000 tons per year. This
was a huge achievement considering the rapid growth in GDP during
that period,” said Xia, “It would be almost impossible for it to be
cut to 400,000 tons per year in the next five or ten years.”
He quoted an international precedent for sectional
water pollution goals on the Rhine in central and western Europe.
Seven countries on the upper reaches of the river shifted money to
work on the lower reaches and decreased water quality targets for
the river as a whole to be just clean enough for boating and
swimming.
The Huaihe could follow this example, said Xia.
“Improving the water quality of the whole river to one standard is
definitely unrealistic.”
Xia suggested setting different targets for
different sections of the river. For example, in the Four Lakes
area in Shandong
Province, where water quality was previously required to reach
Level V, this could be upgraded to Level III since the
South-to-North Water Diversion Project passes through it. In Henan
Province, the goals for the Shahe and Yinghe, both tributaries
to the Huaihe, was Level IV, but is unrealistic. This could be
lowered and varied by season.
In addition, strengthening construction of sewage
treatment plants and controlling the volume of pollutant discharge
along the whole river valley will be carried out for a long time,
so any adjustments would simply reset the timetable for this, said
Xia.
(China.org.cn by Zhang Tingting, April 6, 2005)