The major river valleys in Anhui Province, east China, still witness serious water pollution, with almost half of the water at the poorest quality level, according to a yearly environmental bulletin.

Reports from 107 monitoring points along the Anhui section of the Huaihe River and Chaohu Lake show that 44.9 percent of water was rated V on China's water quality scale, which goes from I to V, with V being the worst, said the 2004 environmental bulletin the provincial environmental protection bureau issued over the weekend.

Zhang Zhiyuan, chief engineer of the bureau, said the water quality of the main stream of the Huaihe within Anhui was rated IV on a yearly basis. The water quality in 10 of the 11 monitoring points was rated V from January to April, but it became better than IV from May to December.

Among the 24 major tributaries of the river, China's third longest, 16 were rated V or worse, up 14.5 percent from 2003, and 4 were rated IV, with the main pollutants being ammonia nitrogen, said Zhang.

The water quality of Chaohu Lake, one of the largest refresh water lakes in the country, was better than the previous year, with eutrophication in the lake's west half turning from the serious level to the middle level.

However, among the 9 major rivers of the lake, 4 were rated V and 3 rated IV, with the major pollutants being ammonia nitrogen and oil.

The bulletin also showed that in 2004 the total drainage of industrial and domestic waste water in the province reached 1.48 billion tons, up 5.1 percent from the previous year, with domestic waste water making up 60 percent.

Running through the four provinces of Henan, Shandong, Anhui and Jiangsu in central and east China, the Huaihe River has become one of the dirtiest rivers in the country and the government has invested heavily to deal with the water pollution over the past few years, but the result is not encouraging.

This year, according to the bulletin, the provinces plan to intensify their efforts to reduce the discharge of pollutants, accelerate the construction of water treatment facilities, and help enterprises to be more environmental friendly in production.

Chaohu Lake in central Anhui, China's fifth largest freshwater lake, has also seen worsening water pollution in these years of fast economic development, and is also a major target of the government environmental protection efforts.

(Xinhua News Agency June 6, 2005)