China to Invest in Treating Water Pollution

The Chinese government has decided to invest in developing technology to treat water pollution, according to the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), chinaview.cn reported.

The State Council has approved three big state-funded programs for the research and development of such technology, said Zhao Yingmin, a SEPA official.

The investment will be hundreds of million yuan, Yingmin said.

The programs, to last between 2008 and 2020, will support the research of technology to monitor the water body environment and remedy pollution of rivers, lakes and drinking water, according to chinaview.cn.

The SEPA earlier said that 26% of surface water in China is totally unusable, 62% is unsuitable for fish and 90% of the rivers running through cities are polluted, chinaview.cn reported.

According to the latest survey, "2007 Environmental Protection and People's Livelihood Index," 32.3% of Chinese were unsatisfied with the local water environment while 20% were not content with the sanitation of drinking water in public places, the website reported. The survey covered 9,011 respondents from 29 provinces and autonomous regions.

One project under the program will be at Taihu Lake in the eastern Jiangsu Province, which suffered a serious blue-green algae outbreak in the summer of 2007, threatening the tap water supply of more than 1 million residents in the lakeside city of Wuxi, according to the website.

"The local environment authority will actively cooperate with scientists to help improve the water quality of the lake," said Shi Zhenhua, head of the provincial environmental department.

Source: www.chinaview.cn