Posted on 01/18/2008 3:03:47 PM PST by bruinbirdman
In a new sign of China's water and environmental crisis, cargo boats on the Yangtze have been stranded on river banks as its levels have fallen to a 140-year low.
Forty boats have run aground since October on the lower stretches of China's longest river, which is both a water supply and industrial thoroughfare for a region of 400 million people.
Government scientists blamed an extended drought in southern and south-western China, which caused widespread water shortages last autumn.
But they also admitted that too much water had been held up by the giant Three Gorges Dam, which was built not only to generate electricity but also to control the Yangtze's devastating summer floods.
The river authorities said that the dam was responsible for a drop of 50 per cent in the river's flow downstream.
Global warming, population pressure, and inefficient use of resources have all contributed to a nationwide water shortage.
The Yellow River, which flows through central and northern China, regularly dries up along much of its course during the dry season, contributing to the growing desertification of the north.
The fate of the Yangtze is particularly disturbing as the authorities are relying on a massive water diversion scheme currently being built at a cost of £32bn to take water from the Yangtze to the Yellow River.
Last week, the water level on the Yangtze at Wuhan, in central China east of the dam, fell to less than 14 metres for the first time since 1866, according to local media.
"The lack of rain is the major reason for the drying up of the Yangtze," the river's water resource commission said, downplaying the influence of the dam.
The propeller of a boat on the river bed (left) and other ships left stranded by
the low Yangtze water level
Nevertheless, while the dam has been welcomed for its major contribution to "greenhouse gas-free" electricity supplies, officials are increasingly worried about its effects on the wider environment.
In recent months it has also been said to have contributed to a rising number of landslides, a plague of rats, polluted water supplies, increased erosion around the mouth of the Yangtze, and the probable extinction of the Yangtse dolphin.
Me thinks that's the number 1 culprit.
LOL.....funny people!
We need to send all our environmentalists over there to bother them. They would actually make sense in China. Look at how filthy the sky is, too.
I imagine people and animals dying of thirst and disease care little about being politically correct.
Sort of like in so Florida, they drained 10 feet of water out of the shallow Okeechobee Lake in Spring 2006, ostensibly to prepare for the 2006 devastating hurricane season, now they say we have a severe water shortage, of course it’s due to drought, not the government action of draining the swamp..
It’s like the mortgage crisis, the government pushes low or no down payment, low interest loans with no qualifying, and wonder why so many walk away when the rate goes up. But the government says they will fix the problem they caused.
Or its modern day equivalent:
Either method would have told them that there was a strong possibility of this happening.
The Three Gorges Dam has been a lot of fun from the start. At one point, the corruption among the contractors was so bad that they had tear everything down and start all over. The surrounding rocks aren’t prime time dam material, and it’s in a big earthquake area. If that dam ever breaks about 100 million people down river will have all the water they ever dreamed of.
Exactly right both here and overseas, a multitude of legitimate environmental problems are being ignored or given short shift in order to serve the goddess of "Global Warming".
Don't be silly. It's all because of Global Warming. But if the US agrees to pay Billions of Dollars in fines, everything will be fine again.
>>>Don’t be silly. It’s all because of Global Warming. But if the US agrees to pay Billions of Dollars in fines, everything will be fine again.<<<<
It’s not Global warming’s fault...
It’s BUSH’s fault.
Nah. The enviros and UN just want us to pay a carbon tax and a measly income tax that will “never increase” — say, 1/4 of 1%.
If we ever agree to that — meaning, if Algore or Hillary ever become President — it will be the end of American sovereignty.
BS, it's 90% due to the dam if not 100%.
They are using the dam to manipulate the west into crippling their economies over global warming.
But at least, with no rain, you can see the clear sky...
I notice that the couple walking in the middle of the river have no mud sticking to their shoes, which means it has been dry for quite a while.
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