The south-to-north water diversion project is the biggest of its kind ever built in China, and its eastern route project is scheduled to divert water in 2007. According to the planning, the water quality diverted will steadily reach the third class standards of surface water in China, which means that the eastern line will have its "final exam". How is the pollution control work going on in the eastern route of the project? Can the goal of transferring clean water to the north be achieved? Recently, a reporter from the overseas edition of People's Daily interviewed officials of the counties and towns along the eastern diversion route.

What the reporter has seen along the line

It is unprecedented for the counties and towns along the route to close down their factories and suspend their operations. Along the route the water pollution problem in the section of the Huai River has basically not been controlled. And in the less developed areas of northern Jiangsu province and of western Shandong province, water pollution is a serious problem. Facing the pollution "exam", areas along the route have carried out unprecedented closedowns and suspended operations of factories. At present, the worsening water quality situation has been fundamentally curbed. However, it is still an arduous task for pollution control work. First of all, let's look at the Jiangsu section. According to a responsible official with the area department of Jiangsu Provincial Development and Reform Commission, all new projects along the diversion route will be built in line with environmental protection standards. All projects with high water consumption and pollution will not be approved. In 2004 the province closed down or suspended 14 papermaking production lines which used chemical methods and other 156 enterprises with pollution problems so that industrial pollution along the route was reduced to 45 per cent from 60 per cent. The latest water-quality monitoring shows that seven water-quality monitoring sections for the Jiangsu portion of the project have reached third class water quality standards, meeting the requirements of drinking and irrigation water. Compared with Jiangsu, things are looking blue in the Shandong section. Judging from water quality monitoring, among the 10 water-quality monitoring sections, only two have reached drinking water standards, two the fifth class, and another two below the fifth class (which means it is neither drinkable nor suitable for industrial and agricultural use). To ensure water quality, Shandong has worked out stricter standards than the national ones. The province has closed down all paper-making production lines with straw pulp and less than 20,000-ton production capacity, eight straw-pulp production lines with less than 50,000-ton output capacity, which can not meet the discharge standards steadily, and all the alcohol production lines with less than 5,000-ton output capacity. Shen Hongyi, deputy manager with Tengzhou Hua Wen Paper Company Ltd, said, "Five straw-pulp production lines of the company have been dismantled. So the auxiliary pollution-control equipment, valued at more than 30 million yuan, is useless. As a result, the company has suffered losses of 60 million yuan. Our hearts are filled with pain as we think of the losses. Because of this, the company has to set up new production lines". According to Zhang Bo, deputy director with Shandong Provincial Environmental Protection Bureau, discharges of COD and ammonia nitrogen have been down by 20.4 and 30.7 per cent respectively in the Shandong section. The reporter has seen that shrubs and arbor trees in the Dasha River of the Xuecheng urban area section, Zaozhuang, grow well and that the water birds are thriving. The water quality at the lake mouth area reached third class standards. Shi Yinian, a villager of the Yaozhuang Village, sighed emotionally, "Several years ago, water in the river was a pitch color with white air bubbles floating on the surface. Now the water is clear with fish in the river.

Make efforts to get rid of pollution

The south-to-north water diversion project can be built into a "clear water corridor". Zhang Jiyao, director of the Office of the South-North Water Diversion Project Construction Committee under the State Council, believes that water environmental harnessing and preservation is the key to the success of the project. If the water diverted by the project is polluted, it will be difficult for us to tell the people in water-receiving areas. He still says, "We can neither lose our confidence in pollution control due to problems existing in the prevention work, nor treat the prevention work lightly because of pollution-control effectiveness. A new and hard battle for pollution control has been launched. To solve pollution, Shandong will make efforts to develop a recycling economy in order to reuse waste resources. Zhang said Shandong will invest 7.23 billion yuan to cut pollution discharges again by more than 60 per cent to reach the goal that "if there is a river, there will be fish in it" along the diversion route. It is learned that Jiangsu will spend 4.95 billion yuan on pollution prevention in order to further reshape industrial structure and push for clean production and enhance pollution prevention efforts. It is warm-hearting that some enterprises have made their experiments. "Nowadays, environmental protection is not a trouble. In the past it cost 27 yuan to treat one ton of sewage, and now 20 yuan of profits will be made by treating a ton of sewage", said Zheng Wenjing, managing deputy manager with Shandong Linghua Gourmet Powder Co Ltd. This is because high-content organic wastewater has been turned into fodder protein, inorganic fertilizer and desalted organic fertilizer through treatment, earning more than 20 million yuan a year, which has realized the transformation from passive pollution control to the active use of wastewater. On one hand, industrial pollution discharges have been cut while on the other hand, wastewater will be fully harnessed and reused. By 2007, the 14 pollution-controlled units in the Jiangsu section will play a role. In the meantime, 44 sewage treatment plants in the Shandong section will be pipelined with nitrogen and phosphorus removal, and the plants will go into operation with full loads. It is especially precious that along the route, people's environmental awareness is increasing repeatedly while the governmental confidence in pollution prevention is enhanced. With the continuous acceleration of pollution control in the eastern route of the project, it's reasonable to believe that the goal of building the project into a "clean water corridor" can be achieved.