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DAM-L Water Shortage Plagues China (fwd)
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From: Right to Water <right-to-water@iatp.org>
To: dianne@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca
Subject: Water Shortage Plagues China
Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2001 15:14:24 -0500
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Right to Water (right-to-water@iatp.org) Posted: 06/21/2001 By mritchie@iatp.org
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Water Shortage Plagues China
By JOE McDONALD
.c The Associated Press
BEIJING (AP) - Rain this month eased a severe drought in parts of China, but
other areas are so dry that limits have been imposed on household water use,
officials said Thursday.
And in the longer term, they said, Beijing and other regions of dry northern
China face such severe shortages that the government will spend $3 billion by
2005 on projects to get more water to the Chinese capital.
This year's drought is the second most widespread in China since 1949,
surpassed only by a 1978 dry spell, the vice minister of water resources,
Zhang Jiyao, said at a news conference.
Lack of rain has affected 73 million acres of farmland and at one point left
areas that are home to 22.6 million people without adequate drinking water,
Zhang said. In some places, he said, rainfall is 40 percent below normal.
``The situation is still serious in areas most severely stricken by the
drought,'' he said.
Rains in mid-June eased droughts in areas ranging from the grain-growing
northeast through the Yellow River basin of north-central China and into the
southwest, Zhang said.
But the crowded eastern province of Shandong - especially the cities of
Yantai and Weihai - is still dry, the vice minister said. Weihai recently set
a monthly allotment of 264 gallons of water per person, he said, and charges
penalties for overuse.
Shandong has more than 100 million people and is one of China's most
important farming areas. ``This is an emergency,'' Zhang said.
Scattered areas of China have suffered a string of droughts in recent years.
Shortages are worsened by growing competition for water by farms and
industry, wasteful use and pollution that ruins supplies.
Officials hope to tackle Beijing's water woes by cleaning up polluted
reservoirs, building 33 water-treatment plants in neighboring provinces,
switching farms to crops that need less water and closing wasteful
industries, Zhang said.
Beijing also hopes to recycle 90 percent of its waste water in new treatment
plants by 2010, up from 20 percent today, said Deputy Mayor Yue Fugong.
Such conservation measures are a shift away from China's past strategy of
increasing supplies by drilling new wells and other measures.
But official plans still emphasize a huge reshaping of the Chinese
environment with a network of aqueducts and canals meant to move billions of
gallons of water a year from the Yangtze river in the south to the dry north.
That project, still in planning stages, isn't expected to be completed for a
decade.
AP-NY-06-21-01 0807EDT
Copyright 2001 The Associated Press. The information contained in the AP news
report may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed
without the prior written authority of The Associated Press. All active
hyperlinks have been inserted by AOL.
Mark Ritchie, President
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy
2105 First Ave. South
612-870-3400 office 612-870-4846 fax
Minneapolis, Minnesota 55404 U.S.A.
mritchie@iatp.org www.iatp.org
www.wtowatch.org, www.farmbillwatch.org
www.gefoodalert.org, www.sustain.org/biotech
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