The legislature of southern
Guangdong Province, an economic engine of China, is creating a
law to protect its supply of drinking water.
The draft of the law will be discussed in the Guangdong
Provincial People's Congress in August and there is no time to
delay in ensuring the safety of drinking water through legal means,
said Yuan Zheng, deputy director of the Environment and Resources
Protection Committee under the congress.
Guangdong's fate is not exceptional in China. As the world's
largest developing nation, China is suffering from an increasingly
serious crisis in drinking water safety as it has made rapid
economic development.
More than 70 percent of China's rivers and lakes are polluted to
varying extent, said Gu Hao, spokesman for the Ministry of Water
Resources.
To provide clean drinking water is the top priority of the
Chinese government's efforts to protect water resources and the
ministry plans to start with water pollution control, said Gu.
"Things like the dry climate and special geologic conditions
endanger water safety in some areas, while, for more areas,
pollution is the 'arch-foe' of drinking water," said Gu.
Guangdong is a case in point.
Though the province has built a lot of sewage treatment plants
in recent years, the waste water discharge volume has risen. A
chain of major environmental hazards have also worsened the water
quality in urban cities, said Gu.
The water supply of Harbin, northeast China, was shut down for
four days last November after about 4 million people were affected
after the Songhua River incurred serious pollution because of a
chemical plant spill upstream.
Less than one month later, a spill of more than 1,000 tons of
heavy cadmium contaminated water from a smelting plant in Guangdong
polluted the Beijiang River, reducing the water supply for more
than 20 towns and cities.
Compared to the cities, the water safety situation is more
worrying in China's vast rural areas with over two thirds of the
country's population, Gu acknowledged.
More than 300 million people in rural areas do not have adequate
clean drinking water and hundreds of thousands of Chinese are
afflicted with various diseases from drinking water that contains
too much fluorine, arsenic, sodium sulfate or bitter salt, said the
spokesman.
The cruel reality of water safety has aroused the attention of
the Chinese government. President Hu Jintao
has instructed local and provincial governments to put drinking
water resources protection on top of their agendas.
China spent 2 billion yuan (about US$250 million) to help 11
million members of the rural population access to drinking water in
2005 and the input would be doubled this year with another 20
million farmers expected to have safe water to drink, said Gu.
China would lower the population faced with drinking water
problems to a third by 2010 and ensure safe drinking water for
every one by 2020, said Gu.
"To hit the target, the government will provide guarantee
investment for project construction," Gu said. "The ministry will
map out a comprehensive plan and put it into practice this
year."
In addition, large-scale pollution control work was carried out
on major rivers.
The discharge of waste will be curbed, sewage treatment
facilities will be improved and those responsible for the majority
of the pollution will be closed down, said Zhou Shengxian, head of
the State Environmental Protection Administration.
More than 700 engineering staff from the Ministry of Water
Resources are probing the pollution of drinking water sources in
Guangdong to provide first-hand information for local government to
carry out proper water sources management, said Yuan Zheng.
"The activities leading to water pollution are crimes and should
receive due penalty," he said.
(Xinhua News Agency March 17, 2006)