River and Lake Water Quality ImprovedTaking effective measures to control water pollution of the Huaihe, Haihe and Liaohe rivers and Taihu, Dianchi and Chaohu lakes has been listed as a major task of environmental protection by Chinese government in the "Ninth Five-year Plan" period. According to news from the State Environmental Protection Administration, thanks to years of efforts, the worsening water quality of the above-said rivers and lakes has been brought under control, the water quality in some sections of the rivers has improved somewhat, and phased achievements have been scored in this cross-century project of environmental protection.Statistics show that there are 5,148 major enterprises each with a daily discharge of more than 100 tons of waste water in the valleys of the said rivers and lakes, and 3,631 of them have accomplished the task of controlling pollution, 965 have stopped manufacturing, gone bankrupt or been closed, i.e. 90 percent of the major polluters have been kept under control. Work to control pollution is well under way in the other 328 enterprises. The discharge of main pollutant of the rivers and lakes has come down to different degree. Though the water pollution control of the three rivers and three lakes has seen some achievement, it still faces a severe situation. The main problems are that some enterprises which have met the set standard cannot maintain its achievement or even discharge pollutant stealthily; some paper-making enterprises are still discharging pollutants; the construction of urban sewage treatment plants proceeds slowly, as a result, the rate of sewage disposal falls far short of the requirements set in related plans. |
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