70% of Huaihe's main tributaries polluted
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-06-14 15:20
Around 70 percent of the tributaries of the Huaihe River, the supplier of
water to one sixth of the country's 1.3 billion population, are seriously
polluted, according to an annual environment monitoring report issued by the
Environmental Protection Administration of east China's Anhui Province.
The overall water quality of the mainstream is described as lightly
contaminated. Most of the pollutants are ammonia and nitrogen, the report says.
In 1994, China launched a campaign to clean the water of the Huaihe River. By
the end of 2005, 62.7 percent of the projects listed in the campaign were
completed but with limited effect. The water-cleaning action "achieved less than
expected result, and pollution in the tributaries is still severe, if not
worse," said Pan Yue, deputy director of the State Administration of
Environmental Protection.
Water from Huaihe's tributaries, which carry 60 percent of the total water
resources of the river, are too polluted to supply even industrial production
and irrigation, let alone drinking.
The State Administration of Environmental Protection has ordered local
governments to adjust the industrial structure, arrange agricultural and
industrial production based on the river's capacity and push forward the
emission licensing system.
The Huaihe River flows through four central and eastern Chinese provinces -
Henan, Anhui, Shandong and Jiangsu - and is located between the country's other
two major rivers, the Yangtze and the Yellow rivers.
|
