The Environmental Protection Agency in Chengdu has taken emergency measures to ensure safe drinking water. They are coping with contamination in Zi Pingpu reservoir, Chengdu's major water source of drinking water.

Ma Ning, director of the Environmental Protection Supervision Center in SW China, told Beijing News that petroleum materials found in the reservoir water have surpassed set safety standards. Apparently, boats used for rescue work discharged these harmful substances.

But he also assured the public that the drinking water in Chengdu wouldn't be contaminated because the Zi Pingpu reservoir is located 45 kilometers from the biggest waterworks, the No. 6 waterworks located in Pixian County and servicing Chengdu City. His statement was confirmed by the monitoring data from the waterworks, which indicated that petroleum material contained in water registered at 0.03mg/l – lower than the officially designated safety standard of 0.05mg/l.

Ma revealed that the Environment Protection Supervision Center in SW China is responsible for supervising the work to de-contaminate the Zi Pingpu reservoir. Yesterday four supervision teams were dispatched to examine pollution sources and to clean up any floating debris and spilled oil.

At the same time, water vehicles would be limited and gradually phased out of the rescue efforts as road traffic resumed normally. In addition, the No. 6 waterworks has been asked to keep adequate water purification materials on hand such as active carbon, potassium permanganate and potassium perchlorate. This cache guarantees adequate water purification measures so that municipal drinking water meets the safety standards.

In addition to these measures, the center also warned local governments to carefully monitor how they use disinfectants in disaster-hit areas, especially the chemical product Panaplate.

(China.org.cn by Xiang Bin, May 22, 2008)