A senior Chinese lawmaker said Saturday China still faces a
severe water environment situation as the trend of deterioration of
water environment "hasn't been checked effectively".
"Total discharge of waste water reached 52.4 billion tons in
2005, a rise of 26 percent over 2000," Sheng Huaren, vice-chairman
of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, in his report to a
meeting of the NPC Standing Committee on inspection of compliance
with environmental protection law.
He said water pollution treatment tasks in major drainage areas
during the Tenth Five-Year Plan period (2001-2005) are not fully
fulfilled. In the Haihe River, Liaohe River and Huaihe River
valleys, only 70 percent of the tasks are fulfilled.
He said water at nearly one third of monitoring points across
the country remains seriously polluted and has lost ecological
functions.
In the Yellow River Valley, water at one fourth of monitoring
points is seriously polluted.
Sheng said the Weihe River, a major tributary of the Yellow
River, annually receives more than 600 million tons of waste water
and 270,000 tons of chemical oxygen demand, which is nearly about
four times of its environmental capacity.
He said many enterprises discharge waste water without
treatment. To reduce production cost, some new enterprises also do
not treat waste water properly.
He said 278 of 661 Chinese cities have no sewage treatment
plants. Some existing sewage treatment plants do not operate in
full capacity for the lack of supporting pipe networks. Some
existing sewage treatment plants with complete pipe networks
suspend operation from time to time due to the lack of reasonable
charge collection policies and lack of operating funds.
He said such issues have been raised several times in the past
inspections, but haven't been effectively resolved yet by now.
"We hope those sewage treatment plants, built with huge funds,
can really live up to their functions," said Sheng.
(Xinhua News Agency August 27, 2006)