Jie Cao*
TIELING, Oct 19 2007 (IPS) – When I was young, if we had visitors, we d go to the river to catch fish with a net. We could catch many big fish of different kinds, recalled septuagenarian Xie, who lives in this village in the north-eastern Chinese province of Liaoning. At that time, there were big willows on the riverbank, so the villagers could relax under the trees in summer.
The river he was reminiscing about was the Tiaozi River, a tributary of the Liao River that feeds 30 million people. But today, the river is more a canal, given the stench of rotten fish and the disgusting color of excrement. There are no fish in the water, no plants along the banks.
Chemical pollutants coming from upstream, added Xie, have adversely affected the river over the last decade or so. Not only were the fish killed off, but the trees along the river were also destroyed. Now, the villagers no longer come to the riverside. If it s windy, we can even smell the stink in our houses, he said.
The Liao River system drains the southern part of the Liao and Sungari plains of the central part of north-east China, in Liaoning province and Inner Mongolia. About 1,350 km long, the river is one of the seven main river systems in China.
Because this mother river of north-eastern China has been heavily polluted by industrial waste, the Chinese government has been making cleanup efforts since 1996. But the situation there remains serious.
Mao Rubai, chairman of the Committee for the Protection of Environment and Resources under the Standing Committee of the National People s Congress (NPC), warned participants of the 29th NPC Standing Committee meeting in August about the gravity of water pollution in the country.
The Liao River, he said, remains heavily polluted. The chemical oxygen demand (COD) discharge, a key indicator of water pollutants, decreased from 1995 to 2000 in the Liao River Basin, but increased to 76 percent in 2006.
Tieling mayor Zhang Jingqiang, an NPC representative, said in an interview that the Liao River Basin is an important energy and grain-producing area. Its pollution needs to be addressed so that people and animals living along the river have clean water to drink.
People and animals here have been drinking this kind of water over the past 10 years, explained an elderly woman who lives in a nearby village, pointing to her vat filled with brackish water. The water came from a well, just one of the many polluted ones in the area, added the woman, who declined to give her name. Look at this bulge, she said, pointing at the egg-like protrusion on her neck. This is because of the water.
The Liao River Basin is rich in mineral resources such as coal, oil, iron, copper, lead and magnesium, which is why many industrial cities have cropped up in this area in recent years. Most of them are heavy producers of chemical waste, said Zhu Zhenjia, chief engineer of Songliao River Water Resources Commission under the Ministry of Water Sources.
Untreated sewage seeping into the river is the main reason for the continued heavy pollution. According to Mao s report, the Zhaosutai River, a tributary of the Liao River, is mainly contaminated by its tributary, the Tiaozi River, into which the sewerage of Siping City is dumped.
Siping City is in Jilin province, also in north-eastern China. At present, the city generates about 80,000 tonnes of wastewater every day, of which only 40,000 to 50,000 tonnes can be disposed of properly. The rest is discharged straight into the Tiaozi River.
Another tributary of the Liao River, the Hun River, drains the city of Shenyang, the biggest industrial city in north-eastern China. Mao s report says that at the Shenshuiwan Sewage Disposal Factory in Shenyang, government officials found that 75 percent of the 1.17 million tonnes of wastewater every day are disposed of in Shenyang, while 400,000 tonnes of wastewater are discharged into the Hun River. Yet Shenyang city is regarded as the best in sewage disposal in north-eastern China.
The Taizi River, another tributary of the Liao River, flows through industrial cities such as Benxi, Liaoyang and Anshan. Officials investigating pollution levels in the river found that local factories still dump wastewater containing many chemical pollutants into the Taizi River.
There is no adequate system for water-pollution prevention in China, according to Mao s report. The current limits for sewage discharge are too low, so that even the polluters pass these standards.
The Chinese government is now making an effort to solve the problem. Under the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2010), the central government will allocate 150 billion yuan (20 billion US dollars) for sewage disposal. On Sep. 10, China s State Environmental Protection Administration sought to amend sewage system standards via a formal letter released to local governments.
(*This story is being distributed by IPS Asia-Pacific under a communication agreement with the Asian Media Information and Communication Centre, in Singapore, which produced it. )
