Shaanxi, an inland province in northwest China, plans to invest 4.5 billion yuan (US$555 million) in a project to tackle the pollution of the Weihe River over the next five years.

According to the plan, some 3.2 billion yuan (US$395 million) of investment will be used in the next three years, mainly for the construction of treatment facilities for waste and the upgrading of the industries along the river.

"At the same time, we will also pay attention to the development of high-tech-based agriculture to protect the resources of surface and underground water," said He Fali, director of the Shaanxi Provincial Environment Protection Bureau, last week.

An investigation on the Weihe's pollution made by the bureau showed that the major polluting sources are: urban sewage and rubbish, industrial waste and the run off of chemical fertilizers.

In 2004, a total of 600 million tons of sewage were discharged into the Weihe River, of which 320 million tons was industrial waste.

"Paper-making mills are the chief sources of pollution. At present, there are 104 paper mills along the river, which discharge a total of 130 million tons of waste annually into the river, 37.6 percent of the total industrial sewage in Shaanxi," the director said.

He told China Daily that the pollution is worse at every section of the river near the major cities of the province, including the provincial capital Xi'an, and Baoji, the second largest city and a major industrial and commercial hub in the province. Owing to the pollution of the river, some local residents have no clean water to drink.

Concentrated in the Weihe River valley is 64 percent of the province's total population. It also contains 72 percent of its irrigated farmland.

However, the river is also a main "sewage channel" in Shaanxi's central region. More than 80 percent of home and industrial waste in Baoji is discharged into the river without prior treatment, said Yin Pukang, an official with the Baoji Environment Bureau.

"In the 1970s, the river was clean and the environment good. As a result, many farmers in the river area could live on fishing from the river. But now there are almost no fish at all," Yin said.

(China Daily August 15, 2005)