Three Gorges Project Has No Obvious Influence on Water Quality of Yangtze River

"The Ecological and Environment Monitoring Communique on the Three Gorges Dam Project, '2000", which was published by the State Environmental Protection Administration on June 5, shows that the natural ecosystem of the Three Gorges Dam region remains in the original state. Construction of said project has no obvious impact on the water quality of the mainstream of the Yangtze River. Nothing abnormal appears in the health conditions of the local residents. However, the industrial and urban household discharge of pollution in the dam region and along the coast exerted great influence on its environment.

The authoritative report says that the various items of key work of the project switched from the groundwork of digging to large-scale pouring of concrete in the construction in 1999. The dam region maintained a rapid and steady economic growth with the GDP exceeding 105.6 billion yuan, and 218,800 people moved out of the region.

The monitoring result provided by the report indicates that the water quality of the Three Gorges Dam region was not bad as a whole in 1999. The comprehensive level of the water was rated as grade 2 or grade 3. However, an obviously polluted area emerged on the lower reaches of the river where a great deal of industrial waste water and city sewage was drained off. In Chongqing, Jiangjin, Changshou, Fuling and Wanzhou, there was a larger discharge of industrial waste water, accounting for more than 93 percent of the total amount discharged in the region.

What merits attention is that villages in the dam area are short of energy resources,, the area of fuel forests and the quantity of firewood have witnessed a persistent decline, entailing serious soil erosion, and geological disasters like collapses and landslides increase, with more than 420 cases of collapses, landslides and mud-rock flows having occurred in 1999.

The report also points out that shipping pollution and rubbish dumping frequently occur in the region and pollution-control goes slow. Most of the rubbish are dumped into the Yangtze River or piled up on the river bank which creates a hidden peril to the water quality of the dam.



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