Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province will, from this year on, tackle the water pollution of the Songhua River flowing through the province. With a comprehensive measure taken for the pollution prevention and control the river once heavily polluted is expected to recover its cleanness as time goes on. The Plan for Water Pollution Control proposed by the provincial government has already been drafted and assessed by experts in this regard.

Taking its source in Everlasting White Mountains in Jilin province, the Songhua River runs a total of 1,700 km with its mainstream extending over 800 km, which, however, is basically stretching within the Heilongjiang Province. Due to a long-time pollution by sewage, many stretches along the river have more or less been polluted.

Statistics indicate that in the 1950s, the river was found abound in nearly 100 species of fish, but in 1990, only 56 were left in the river. As pollution tended more serious, freshwater bream, mandarin fish and other fish in the river have gradually gone to the brink of extinction.

According to the Heilongjiang Environmental Protection Bureau, the province, targeting at improving its environmental quality, will launch an overall "1231" project. It consists of the Songhua River, the two lakes of Jingbo and Xingkai, and three ecological protection zones of Daxinganling, Song-Nen Plain, and the wetland on the plain in between the three rivers as well as one city of Harbin, capital of the province. Moreover, the plan for the treatment and control of water pollution of the Songhua River has been listed as environmental protection project in China' Tenth Five Year Plan.

So far, sewage treatment plant projects have been put underway in some such cities as Harbin and Mudanjiang.

As reported, some 125 items of the Water Pollution Control Plan for the Songhua River have been mapped out. In the meanwhile, a network system for automatic water quality checking has also been kicked off in the province.

(People’s Daily 01/11/2001)