Mid-air pipe gives mountain village access to clean drinking water

Photo shows the water supply project built at an elevation of about 600 meters between two mountains. (Photo/Chinanews.com)

Residents of Longchi village have gained access to safe drinking water thanks to a 1,500-meter-long pipe built across two mountains.

Located in Changyang Tujia autonomous county, central China’s Hubei province, Longchi village is tucked deep in karst mountains and was previously badly short of water resources.

After living under the poverty line for years due to water shortages, the villagers tried every possible means to get water from rainfall or by carrying water from a river at the foot of the mountain. But these measures cost a lot of money and took a lot of manpower.

Things began to change in 2018 when several cadres from the village found a spring from an opposite mountain and decided to try and guide the water to Longchi through a pipe.

This proved to be an extremely difficult task as mechanical facilities could not operate on the top of the mountain. Workers had to first climb down from the two mountains to connect wire ropes and then tie the pipe to them. The pipe sits at an elevation of about 600 meters and is 1,480 meters in length, and was the first project of this kind in Hubei province.

In June 2019, the project was put into operation, guiding spring water to Longchi through the pipe. Before arriving in the 305 households in Longchi, the water has to go through a filtering process.

Now, the project provides 240 cubic meters of water every day, providing a complete solution to the water shortage problem for local villagers.

Now that the village has access to clean drinking water, Liu Changhong, who used to be a migrant worker, returned to his village in 2020 to raise pigs. In the past more than two years, more than 20 villagers in Longchi have run livestock farming businesses like Liu.

Today in Longchi, livestock production has become a pillar industry, with villagers also planting cash crops such as orange trees, papaya trees, and tea trees to increase their incomes.

To reduce poverty, Changyang has earmarked a total of 320 million yuan ($49.28 million) for the construction of water supply projects in rural areas, according to Liu Shengyong, director of the office of rural water supply affairs in Changyang.