Li Yonggang has spent his whole life near the Sushui River in north China's Shanxi Province. He knows how it has changed.

"When I was a child, the Sushui River was clean and fresh," he said. "There were many fish in it. The river carries a lot of sweet memories for us boys."

But today, Li, a farmer in his mid 30s, has trouble finding clean water near the banks of the Sushui.

"In the past, I dug 60 metres to get clean drinking water," said Li, who lives in Yangma Village of Yongji County. "But now, as you see, my well is 180 metres deep."

Today the Sushui is black and smelly. It looks more like a sewage ditch than a river.

Samples show the water quality is even worse than Grade V the lowest level in the five-grade water quality system.

And the Sushui is not unique among the 26 rivers in Shanxi, China's major coal producing base, nearly 81 percent were rated Grade V or lower last year.

The province has the worst water in China, and it's getting even worse.

The dire situation is what brought members of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) to Shanxi for an eight-day examination tour last month.

They were in the province to ensure the Law on the Prevention of Environmental Pollution from Solid Waste and the Law on the Prevention and Control of Water Pollution were being properly implemented.

"Environmental problems have become a restraint on Shanxi's economic and social development," said Sheng Huaren, vice-chairman of the NPC Standing Committee.

The condition of the Sushui River began to deteriorate in the 1980s, when huge amounts of chemicals from print works, dye factories and other industries began pouring into it.

Today 13 million cubic metres of wastewater is injected into the river every year and no parts of the 197-kilometre river are clean.

Air pollution in Shanxi is also serious.

According to statistics from the State Environmental Protection Administration, the country's 10 worst polluted cities are all in Shanxi. Emissions of sulphur dioxide (SO2) in the province reached 1.5 million tons last year, double the goal the provincial government had set.

As for solid waste, coal slag reached 1 billion tons and covered more than 20,000 hectares last year. And more than 40 million more tons of slag is produced every year.

As a result, Shanxi failed to fulfill its environmental promises during the 10th Five-Year Guidelines (2001-05) period.

"The huge amount of coal slag is a big problem. It not only occupies the land, but also seriously pollutes the air and water," Sheng told local officials.

Shanxi's problems, said Sheng, can be attributed to two main causes the lack of a pollution control scheme for decades, and the unsustainable approach of local economic development.

For example, 3 million tons of wastewater is produced every day in the province with two-thirds of it discharged directly into local rivers without any treatment. And the situation is apparently not changing.

The NPC passed legislation in March mandating that the amount of sulphur dioxide and carbon monoxide discharged in the country must drop by 10 percent by the end of 2010 compared with the levels at the end of last year.

"But for Shanxi, pollution will possibly continue to worsen in the coming five years," Sheng said.

Part of the problem rests with the province's blind pursuit of high economic growth, he said. For example, in the 11th Five Year Plan (2006-10) period, Shanxi has vowed to achieve an annual growth of 10 percent for its gross domestic product (GDP), much higher than the country's overall target of 7.5 percent.

The province's Jinzhong, Linfen and Yunchen cities have even set GDP growth targets of 16 percent, 12 percent and 13 percent respectively.

"As Shanxi's major industries are thermal power generation, metallurgy and chemical industries, I am really worried about the environment if such a high goal for economic development is to be realized in the coming years," said Sheng.

The GDP of Taiyuan, Shanxi's capital, grew by 13 percent during 2001-05. However, the city's leaders have set the growth rate at less than 10 percent between now and 2010.

"I hope Shanxi's other regions can learn from Taiyuan," Sheng said, urging local governments to pursue economic development that is friendlier to the environment.

A local official in Datong of Shanxi, who only gave his surname as Li, suggested that part of the solution lies in changing the way officials' are evaluated.

"Currently, the judgment of an official's achievement mainly depends on GDP growth rate, rather than environmental improvement," said Liu.

"Environmental protection needs big investments, but if it won't benefit an officials' career, then who will do this?" he added.

In the nation's 10th Five-Year Guidelines, only two environmental goals were set. Neither was achieved.

The National Development and Reform Commission blamed the failure on the government's neglect of environmental protection.

In response, the NPC Standing Committee sent five inspection teams, with Sheng as the overall head, to examine the implementation of China's environmental laws.

The teams went to Beijing, Shanxi, central China's Hubei Province, southwest China's Sichuan Province and northwest China's Shaanxi Province in May and June.

In addition, the NPC Standing Committee has demanded local people's congresses in 10 other provinces, municipalities and autonomous regions do the same within their jurisdictions.

In late August, Sheng will report the findings at a regular session of the NPC Standing Committee.

Hopefully China will take more steps to return the Sushui to the beautiful river Li Yonggang once knew.

(China Daily July 17, 2006)