My second home (not the boat, just the town where this pic was taken).
Posted on 03/22/2005 6:42:18 PM PST by Brian328i
BEIJING (Reuters) - China's massive project to pump water to its parched north has a problem: a lack of clean water to pump.
The country has begun its ambitious South-North water diversion scheme, but widespread pollution and failure by regional governments to improve waste treatment were ruining available supplies, an official said at a symposium in Beijing on Tuesday, the U.N. World Water Day.
When complete in 2050, the multi-billion dollar diversion scheme is intended to annually send 44.8 billion cubic meters of water from southern rivers to farms and cities in the dry north.
"Many places have not implemented central government directives and continued to allow polluting and heavy resource-consuming industries to operate," said Liu Hongzhi, deputy director general of the pollution control department of China's environmental protection agency.
Top Chinese leaders have made the country's water crisis -- 300 million people do not have access to drinkable water -- a high priority. Premier Wen Jiabao promised "clean water for the people" at China's recent annual parliament session.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
I'd like to read some follow-up on this.
Problem-solving----China-style should be fun to follow.
My second home (not the boat, just the town where this pic was taken).
Water pollution worsening in China: watchdoghttp://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2005-03/22/content_2731567.htm
www.chinaview.cn 2005-03-22 20:50:11
BEIJING, March 22 (Xinhuanet) -- China has failed in its efforts to check the degeneration of its water quality, a top water official acknowledged on Tuesday, the World Water Day.
"China has taken many steps to control the water contamination,but its speed across the country has not been arrested," said Liu Hongzhi, deputy director of Department of Pollution Control of China State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA).
More than 70 percent of the nation's rivers and lakes are polluted. China's third longest river, Huaihe, is dirtier than at any time in its history, and a 40 percent section of the Yellow River, the country's second's longest, is useless, according to SEPA.
Moreover, over 300 million people in rural areas do not have adequate clean drinking water. As a result, hundreds of thousands are afflicted with various diseases from drinking water that contains too much fluorine, arsenic, sodium sulfate or bitter salt, revealed Wang Shucheng, minister of Water Resources.
China has built approximate 86,000 reservoirs since its 1949, which overtapped more than 60,000 rivers in the past half century.
Liu blamed the crisis on the improper policies and lax administration of the government.
"China failed to list water conservation in its social and economist plan in the past several years," said Liu. He did not elaborate.
China ranks 82 in per capita water possession among 132 countries investigated by the World Bank. China has 2,300 cubic meters of water for each person, one fourth of the world's average.
Can't be dirtier than Taipei can it?
Yellow River eh? Well that ought to be a clue. Made from last winter's yellow snow.
No need to worry, the Kyoto treaty will solve this problem.
I don't know about that. We were buying some fish from a vendor that had set up near the canal. A fish jumped out of his pot, over the wall and down into the canal. It same around a bit and then jumped back out of the canal into the vendors pot.
> "Many places have not implemented central government
> directives and continued to allow polluting and heavy
> resource-consuming industries to operate," said Liu
> Hongzhi, deputy director general of the pollution control
> department of China's environmental protection agency.
What a shock. The Army-owned/controlled and otherwise
corrupting industries operate as if they are above the
law (which, for all practical purposes, they are).
Nothing substantive will be done about this until party
members and their children are dying in huge numbers
(by which time it may be too late).
However, in order to keep up appearances, some scapegoats
may be sacrificed in the meantime - a shopowner here, a
deputy director general there. If the anti-pollution
bureaucrats have no real power, they'd better be asking
themselves what their real role is.
In Taiwan, you defintely do not drink the water. But bathing in it is OK. Just try not to shower more than 5 times a day.(inside joke re:the temperature and humidity)
Mabye they oughta stick a few of those nuke reactors they're planning on building near the coast so they can desalinize...
The Soviet Union did this a while ago. The results were horrific and they never came close to their goal of sending water where they wanted it.
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