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December 1, 2016

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Clean-up drive means far fewer polluted rivers

THE number of polluted and foul-smelling rivers has declined sharply this year as a result of the city government launching a campaign to clean up its rivers by the end of next year.

The percentage of local heavily polluted rivers — those rated grade 5 — has been cut by 22 percentage points from a year ago to 35 percent by October, said Liu Xiaotao, deputy director of Shanghai Water Authority.

“Most of them are near urban-rural areas, outskirt towns, industrial sites and livestock farms, which will become the main target of the citywide water cleaning campaign,” Liu told local legislators.

The major clean-up measures include dredging polluted rivers, removing floating pollutants, building separate sewage and rainwater pipes, as well as demolishing illegal structures on the riverbanks. Some dead-end rivers, prone to stinking, will be unblocked.

Shanghai Party Secretary Han Zheng has said the city aims to clean up the polluted and odorous rivers by the end of next year, while eliminating all grade 5 rated rivers by 2020. By that date all the city’s rivers are expected to have attained city and national standards.

China classifies water quality into six grades. Grade 1 is potable after minimal treatment, while grade 6 is severely contaminated. According to a survey early this year, half of local rivers were rated at grade 5, while excessive nitrogen and phosphorus pollutants had been found in most rivers.

The city’s environmental protection, water, police, urban management, traffic, maritime and power authorities would establish a joint law enforcement team to crack down on water polluters, Liu said yesterday. Anyone who polluted the rivers would face severe punishment.

“The district directors are appointed the ‘head of rivers’ within the district jurisdictions to take responsibility,” he added. The city government would take the rivers’ conditions into account when evaluating the work of the district officials.

The government would also subsidize district and township projects, such as building sewage pipelines, bridges or relocating riverside factories to curb river pollution, Liu said.

Several major polluted rivers in Jiading, Qingpu, Songjiang and Minhang districts have been purified as demonstration projects, which were examined by local legislators yesterday.

Xiaolaigang River, for instance, a former noxious waterway running through Minhang, Qingpu and Songjiang districts, has been transformed.

The districts’ water authorities divided the 8-kilometer-long river into several sections to dredge waterways, rebuild riverbanks, plant trees as well as building new bridges and anti-flood walls.

In the Songjiang portion, 30,000 square meters of illegal structures responsible for much of the pollution were dismantled in November.

The 2.2-kilometer-long Tangjiabang River in the city’s popular tourism attraction Qibao Town in Minhang District has been purified after some 8,500 square meters of illegal structures were demolished this year, according to the water authority.

The riverbanks were once occupied by illegal residential houses that discharged daily waste into the river. Now sewage flows through newly built pipelines, and trees have been planted along the riverbanks.

Citywide, some 240 kilometers of sewage pipelines are to be built across Shanghai by 2020, when more than 95 percent of waste water will be collected and treated, according to the authority.




 

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