An advisor to the State Council’s South-to-North Water Diversion Project has said that readjusting water pollution goals for the Huaihe River is in line with government commitments.

Xia Qing, an expert in prevention and control of water pollution, told Lifeweek magazine later in March, “The government is aiming to solve drinkable water problems pragmatically in order to build a harmonious society. To invest limited funds in dealing with this urgent task could gain support from all walks of life.”

In the government’s work report to the National People’s Congress on March 5, Premier Wen Jiabao promised to “ensure people have clean water, fresh air and a better environment in which to live and work.”

While he did not mention the Huaihe specifically, Xia, also head of the expert panel of the GEF Ocean and River Programs Office affiliated to the State Environmental Protection Administration, maintains that the spirit of the government’s message concurs with proposals to adapt its pollution targets.

The Huaihe is the country’s most severely polluted river and, home to one-sixth of the population, its valley has the highest population density.

The State Council issued a provisional regulation on prevention and control of water pollution there in August 1995, the first for a specific river; in June the next year, it ratified it, announcing that the Huaihe would be cleaned up over the next ten years.

That initial plan was to reduce COD (chemical oxygen demand)-related pollutant discharge to 368,000 tons by 2000. COD is used to gauge pollutants from discharged waste such as sewage and industrial effluent.

“COD discharge was reduced from 1.5 million tons in 1994 to 1.23 million in 2004, down by 250,000 tons per year. This was a huge achievement considering the rapid growth in GDP during that period,” said Xia, “It would be almost impossible for it to be cut to 400,000 tons per year in the next five or ten years.”

He quoted an international precedent for sectional water pollution goals on the Rhine in central and western Europe. Seven countries on the upper reaches of the river shifted money to work on the lower reaches and decreased water quality targets for the river as a whole to be just clean enough for boating and swimming.

The Huaihe could follow this example, said Xia. “Improving the water quality of the whole river to one standard is definitely unrealistic.”

Xia suggested setting different targets for different sections of the river. For example, in the Four Lakes area in Shandong Province, where water quality was previously required to reach Level V, this could be upgraded to Level III since the South-to-North Water Diversion Project passes through it. In Henan Province, the goals for the Shahe and Yinghe, both tributaries to the Huaihe, was Level IV, but is unrealistic. This could be lowered and varied by season.

In addition, strengthening construction of sewage treatment plants and controlling the volume of pollutant discharge along the whole river valley will be carried out for a long time, so any adjustments would simply reset the timetable for this, said Xia.

(China.org.cn by Zhang Tingting, April 6, 2005)