Millions Face Water Shortage in North China, Officials Warn

June 6, 2003
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

BEIJING, June 5 (AP) - Millions of people in northern China face water shortages this summer as the Yellow River falls to its lowest level in 50 years, environmental officials warned today. In addition, more than half the watersheds of China's seven main rivers are contaminated by industrial, farm and household waste, the officials said in a bleak annual report on the nation's environment.

"China is a country that lacks water resources, and the problem of water pollution remains severe," said Xie Zhenhua, head of the State Environmental Protection Administration. "This year our top priority is to ensure clean drinking water for our people."

Booming industry and a population of 1.3 billion people have outstripped China's rudimentary water and sewage systems and left its cities choked with smog. Despite improvements, air in two-thirds of China's cities is still considered polluted by official standards, the
environmental report said.

Only one-quarter of the 21 billion tons of China's annual output of household sewage is treated, Mr. Xie said. Treatment plants are being built, but will still handle only half of all city sewage, leaving rural waste water untreated.

The government has forecast an annual water shortfall of 53 trillion gallons by 2030 - more than China now consumes in a year.

In the north, drought and overuse have left the Yellow River so drained that in recent summer low seasons it has dried up before reaching the sea.

This spring, oil spills and water shortages on the Yellow River forced the government to suspend work on a project to divert some of its water further northward, said Wang
Jirong, a deputy director of the environmental agency.

"The Yellow River is facing a serious environmental crisis," she said.

The 3,415-mile Yellow River winds its way from the mountains of western China to the Bohai Sea in the east, providing water to 12 percent of China's population.

Monitoring of 185 sections of the river showed the water quality was terrible, with nearly half the stations recording pollution levels below grade V, the poorest measurement China has, the official New China News Agency reported.

Pollution, erosion, overgrazing and other forms of environmental degradation are taking a heavy toll on the health of China's people and on the nation's economy.

The World Bank says air and water pollution cost China $54 billion in 1995, Mr. Xie said. He did not give more recent figures.

The government has promised to close heavily polluting factories and plans to spend $32 billion on water treatment plants in the next few years. By 2005, almost two-thirds of
waste water from cities with populations of 500,000 or more will be treated, Mr. Xie said.

The release of the report follows the start last weekend of filling the vast reservoir of the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River in central China - the world's biggest hydroelectric project.

Critics say the dam will trap pollutants from factories and cities in its 400-mile-long reservoir.

Mr. Xie said there was no sign yet of that happening, though he acknowledged that "pollution upstream already far exceeds standards."

The government is spending $2.4 billion on construction of water treatment plants in the area, 60 percent of which are to be operating by the end of this year.