[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
DAM-L Yangtze dirty despite official hype: reporters (fwd)
----- Forwarded message from Right to Water -----
Return-path: <right-to-water@iatp.org>
Received: from mail.iatp.org (iatp-2.InnovSoftD.com [208.141.36.66])
by lox.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca (8.8.7/8.8.8) with ESMTP id LAA09655
for <dianne@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca>; Fri, 20 Jul 2001 11:51:00 -0400 (EDT)
Received: from [208.141.36.73] by mail.iatp.org
(Netscape Messaging Server 3.62) with SMTP id 611
for <dianne@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca>;
Fri, 20 Jul 2001 11:01:59 -0500
From: Right to Water <right-to-water@iatp.org>
To: dianne@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca
Subject: Yangtze dirty despite official hype: reporters
Date: Fri, 20 Jul 2001 11:12:04 -0500
X-Mailer: Allaire Cold Fusion 3.1
Message-ID: <20010720160150538.ABD646.611@[208.141.36.73]>
Right to Water (right-to-water@iatp.org) Posted: 07/19/2001 By kevinyli@pacific.net.hk
============================================================
http://china.scmp.com/today/ZZZJP13J4PC.html
South China Morning Post, Thursday, July 19, 2001
Yangtze dirty despite official hype: reporters
STAFF REPORTER in Beijing
Despite government publicity about cleaning up the Yangtze River, a team of
reporters has found "dangerous" levels of pollution in a section just above
the Three Gorges area due to run-off from a pharmaceutical factory and
nearby construction sites.
Some of the pollution is near a drinking-water source, according to a
reporter from the Legal Daily, and water in the area smells like medicine.
The Yangtze is 5,500km long - from Tibet to the Pacific Ocean. It covers
China's most populated and logged areas. The river also has a lot of
tourist traffic. Run-off from farms, factories and city sewerage systems
join boat exhaust fumes to foul the river.
The reporters, from China Central TV, China Youth Daily and other state-run
media, on Saturday examined 4km of the river near Wanzhou, which comes
under Chongqing Municipality.
They found five pollution discharge points and evidence that industry
managers were not monitoring the dumping.
A Wanzhou official tried to convince the reporters that he had tried to
make his district a "nationwide excellent sanitation city" and the manager
of an offending factory had said his plant was monitoring its discharges.
Official statistics give the main channel of the Yangtze grades of two and
three on a scale of five, with five being the worst rating. Waterways rated
two are suitable for swimming. But some who watch China's rivers are
neither convinced by the Government's quality reports nor surprised by the
reporters' findings.
"The fact that some reporters found a factory that is polluting the river
is not unusual any more," said Robert Armstrong, who heads the US Embassy's
environmental science and technology section.
"The fact that the Yangtze is polluted is no surprise. I think there are a
lot more spills that we don't hear anything about."
Chongqing Municipality last summer began a 50 billion yuan (HK$47 billion),
10-year project to clean up the environment, including treatment of
industrial waste.
============================================================
How to Use this Mailing List
============================================================
You received this e-mail as a result of your registration on the right-to-water mailing list.
To unsubscribe, please send an email to listserv@iatp.org. In the body of the message type:
unsubscribe right-to-water
To Subscribe, please send an email to listserv@iatp.org. In the body of the message type:
subscribe right-to-water
To view the archive, go to www.iatp.org/listarchive
For a list of other commands and list options, please send email to listserv@iatp.org.
In the body of the message type:
help
Please direct content questions about this list to: mritchie@iatp.org
Please direct technical questions about this service to: support@iatp.org
----- End of forwarded message from Right to Water -----