ON MONDAY, an official at the Ministry of Water Resources responded to a recent report suggesting that more than 80 percent of the water in China's aquifers is too polluted for human consumption by asserting China's deep underground drinking water sources are safe. Beijing Youth Daily commented on Tuesday:

That more than 80 percent of China's underground water sources are said to polluted, does not come as a surprise, as most believe that not only shallow groundwater, but also the water extracted from deep underground for human consumption, have fallen prey to serious contamination.

Keeping the deep underground water sources from being contaminated is already challenging and requires strenuous efforts, never mind treating water that has been polluted. And the nation's water will not be able to cleanse itself, because the threshold for so-called self-recovery has already been crossed.