On March 22, World Water Day, the government of Wuxi announced
that the Yangtze River diversion project had been fully launched.
The project was initially planned to be completed at the end of
2009, but with accelerated construction it is now expected to be
finished in 2008. When it is complete, residents of Wuxi in
southeast China's Jiangsu Province will have a new drinking
water source. It will not be necessary for them to solely rely on
Taihu Lake.
"In recent years, the government has spent so much money in
improving the water quality of Taihu Lake, but the outcome was
disappointing. We should take the phenomenon into serious
consideration," commented Professor Wang Guoxiang, director of the
Research Center for Eco-environmental Sciences of Nanjing Normal
University, when interviewed by the China Business Daily
on June 5.
In August 2002, Wuxi officially launched a water treatment
project that is a part of China's national high technology research
and development program. This project aims to research polluted
water treatment and water quality improvement for Taihu Lake. It
also includes bettering the water quality of the lake sections
where people draw their drinking water. In the next three years,
researchers obtained 134 patents, issued 434 essays and got 2
authorities-approved technological achievements. Unfortunately,
none of these accomplishments has helped raise drinking water
quality.
Taihu Lake is the drinking water sources of many areas around it
so it is a key task to make sure that its water can meet quality
standards, Professor Wang said. No matter what technological
achievements are achieved, what measures are taken, they do not
count at all if the safety of drinking water cannot be assured, he
added.
"Under current unfavorable circumstances, we should not spend
our energy doing research on those basic theories," he said. "I
hope that researchers should take the best interests of the general
public into consideration and focus on solving the problems of the
quality of drinking water sources to keep people from harms caused
by environmental pollution."
In Professor Wang's opinion, the Taihu Lake areas have serious
problems with pollution source control. They are sensitive areas
because of their dense population and strong economy. Therefore, he
thinks that special standards instead of regular ones should be set
in these areas.
As early as 1998, a government campaign managed to improve the
water quality of Taihu Lake by adopting two measures – strictly
controlling the amount of industrial waste water and treating
sewage from households before discharging it. But now with
population increasing and economy growing in the Taihu Lake areas,
these measures are not enough.
Qu Geping, a then central government official in charge of
environmental protection, pointed out that some other measures
should be taken in order to clean up Taihu Lake. Firstly, the
authorities in the areas should adjust the industrial and product
structures by getting rid of heavy pollution-causing enterprises
and developing non- or low-pollution industrial products. Secondly,
they should improve the industrial layout by strategically locating
industrial plants to control the amount of pollution discharges and
cut costs.
China does not have a scientific development system, explained
Zhang Jinghan, vice president of Jiangsu Academy of Social
Sciences. Although the central government is promoting a scientific
development view, it has not drawn up any detailed incentive and
punishment regulations. In addition, environmental protection
authorities have too much flexibility and China's administrative
system still needs improvement.
Absence of non-governmental groups' participation is considered
to be one of the main reasons for failure in Taihu Lake pollution
control.
Reportedly, during the past several years, at least two people
in Wuxi applied to the local government several times for
establishing an environmental protection non-governmental
organization. But their application was turned down because there
is already such an organization in Wuxi and only one NGO of the
same kind is allowed to exit in an administrative region, according
to the relevant law.
Fortunately, the government of Wuxi has now realized the
importance of non-governmental groups. Early this year, it worked
out an action plan for environmental protection to encourage people
from every field and sector of society to take part in
environmental protection.
The government also intends to remove the restrictions on
establishing NGOs and will encourage interested groups or
individuals to set up NGOs to help with environmental management
and protection, participate in policies making, and to enhance
people's awareness of environmental protection.
Recently, Wuxi claimed that it would improve relevant local laws
and regulations on citizens' environmental rights and work harder
in educating citizens on the importance of environmental
protection. It will also make appropriate policies for disclosing
information on environmental safety, and guide all the citizens in
their participation in in environmental protection and
management.
(China.org.cn by Pang Li, June 11, 2007)
