China realizes people need clean water to live!

[jimmy olsen]

Shocking!

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/02/20/us-china-pollution-water-idUSBRE91J19N20130220

After China's multibillion-dollar cleanup, water still unfit to drink


By David Stanway

BEIJING | Wed Feb 20, 2013 4:32pm EST

(Reuters) - China aims to spend $850 billion to improve filthy water supplies over the next decade, but even such huge outlays may do little to reverse damage caused by decades of pollution and overuse in Beijing's push for rapid economic growth.

China is promising to invest 4 trillion yuan ($650 billion) - equal to its entire stimulus package during the global financial crisis - on rural water projects alone during the 2011-2020 period. What's more, at least $200 billion in additional funds has been earmarked for a variety of cleanup projects nationwide, Reuters has learned after scouring a range of central and local government documents.

That new cash injection will be vital, with rivers and lakes throughout China blighted by algae blooms caused by fertilizer run-off, bubbling chemical spills and untreated sewage discharges. Judging by Beijing's cleanup record so far, however, the final tally could be many times higher.

Over the five years to 2010, the country spent 700 billion yuan ($112.41 billion) on water infrastructure, but much of its water remains undrinkable. The environment ministry said 43 percent of the locations it was monitoring in 2011 contained water that was not even fit for human contact.

"The reason why they have achieved so little even though they have spent so much on pollution treatment is because they have followed the wrong urbanization model - China is still putting too much pressure on local resources," said Zhou Lei, a fellow at Nanjing University who has studied water pollution.

A close look at publicly available documents shows limited environmental ambitions, as Beijing strives to prolong three decades of blistering economic growth and fill the estimated annual water supply shortfall of 50 billion cubic meters (bcm) required to feed growing energy and agricultural demand.

At the same time, the government faces growing pressure to address environmental effects of fast growth, as public anger over air pollution that blanketed many northern cities in January has spread to online appeals for Beijing to clean up water supplies as well.

The huge costs suggest that treatment, rather than prevention, remains the preferred solution, with industrial growth paramount and pollution regarded as just another economic opportunity, Zhou said.

"They always treat environmental degradation as an economic issue. China is even using pollution as a resource, and using the opportunity to treat environmental degradation as a way to accumulate new wealth," he said, referring to business contracts local governments offer to big water treatment firms.

"INDUSTRIAL-USE ONLY"

On top of the 10-year rural water plan, China last year vowed to spend another 250 billion yuan on water conservation, and has since allocated a further 130 billion yuan to treat small and medium-sized rivers over the next two years.

Local governments are also spending heavily, with Dianchi Lake in southwest China's Yunnan province being lavished with 31 billion yuan of investment in the next three years in order to produce "obvious improvements" in water quality, records show.

East China's Lake Tai, a test case for China's environmental authorities after suffering a notorious bloom of algae and cyanobacteria in 2007, has spent 70 billion yuan in the five years since, and more is expected.

Both cleanup projects have been designed merely to bring water up from "grade V" - meaning "no human contact" - to "grade IV", which is designated "industrial use only", according to detailed plans listed on local government websites.

Even such negligible gains could be crucial for a country that has the same amount of water as Britain although its population is 20 times as big.

Data from China's Ministry of Water Resources shows that average per capita supplies stand at 2,100 cubic meters, 28 percent of the global average. The government has vowed to cap total use to 700 bcm a year by 2030, but that will still require a big increase in supplies, with consumption now about 600 bcm.

Costly engineering and technological feats, though unlikely to address the underlying causes of pollution, could at least make more water available, allowing marginal quality improvements without interfering with industrial growth or the country's ambitious and water-intense urbanization plans.

"Part of this increase in the supply of water will come from removing all 'grade V' water supplies, which is actually useless even for agriculture," said Debra Tan, director at the China Water Risk organization. "Grade IV is not safe to swim in, but it at least is usable." ($1 = 6.2270 Chinese yuan)

(Editing by Ken Wills)

[Agelastus]

Even such negligible gains could be crucial for a country that has the same amount of water as Britain although its population is 20 times as big.

On the face of it, that sounds unbelievable given the relative land areas of the two countries and the scale of Chinese drainage basins compared to Britain's.

And yet Wikipedia (albeit taken with a large pinch of salt as always) implies that Britain's water supply is actually closer to twice that of China's!

I may never look at the humble taps in my house in the same way again.

[mongers]

Even such negligible gains could be crucial for a country that has the same amount of water as Britain although its population is 20 times as big.

On the face of it, that sounds unbelievable given the relative land areas of the two countries and the scale of Chinese drainage basins compared to Britain's.

And yet Wikipedia (albeit taken with a large pinch of salt as always) implies that Britain's water supply is actually closer to twice that of China's!

I may never look at the humble taps in my house in the same way again.

Interesting. 

iirc we have some of the highest water use in Europe, I suspect in part due to the relative abundance of westerlies making one think water is everywhere and our more 'advanced' taking 'free' things for granted. 

[Darth Wagtaros]

I concur.

[Malthus]

England is, indeed, very wet.  On the plus side, comming from Ontario (where in the summer everything tends to burn brown) England's vegitation appears incredibly lush - a "green and pleasant land" indeed.

[mongers]

England is, indeed, very wet.  On the plus side, comming from Ontario (where in the summer everything tends to burn brown) England's vegitation appears incredibly lush - a "green and pleasant land" indeed.

Yep last year was the greenest year I can recall, everything green rioted, I took to taking cutters with me on occasion when out and about.

Tell me about it, I was taking a leak in a field on the way home today and thinking to myself, things are drying up nicely.
Then I looked across to the river 5 yards away, which is nearly overflowing, and no doubt an optical illusion but it looked like I was standing lower than the surface of the water.   

[Malthus]

England is, indeed, very wet.  On the plus side, comming from Ontario (where in the summer everything tends to burn brown) England's vegitation appears incredibly lush - a "green and pleasant land" indeed.

Yep last year was the greenest year I can recall, everything green rioted, I took to taking cutters with me on occasion when out and about.

Tell me about it, I was taking a leak in a field on the way home today and thinking to myself, things are drying up nicely.
Then I looked across to the river 5 yards away, which is nearly overflowing, and no doubt an optical illusion but it looked like I was standing lower than the surface of the water.   

My brother's wife is English (they now live in Wessex, in Warminster) and when she came over to Ontario one summer she was shocked at how burnt up everything seemed - she assumed we were in the middle of a major drought.

Then she came over in Frebruary.  My brother had not adequately prepared her for a Toronto mid-winter.

[mongers]

England is, indeed, very wet.  On the plus side, comming from Ontario (where in the summer everything tends to burn brown) England's vegitation appears incredibly lush - a "green and pleasant land" indeed.

Yep last year was the greenest year I can recall, everything green rioted, I took to taking cutters with me on occasion when out and about.

Tell me about it, I was taking a leak in a field on the way home today and thinking to myself, things are drying up nicely.
Then I looked across to the river 5 yards away, which is nearly overflowing, and no doubt an optical illusion but it looked like I was standing lower than the surface of the water.   

My brother's wife is English (they now live in Wessex, in Warminster) and when she came over to Ontario one summer she was shocked at how burnt up everything seemed - she assumed we were in the middle of a major drought.

Then she came over in Frebruary.  My brother had not adequately prepared her for a Toronto mid-winter.

Yeah those sort of things can really shock us English to the core.
I guess much of her experience falls outside our narrow, but highly detailed weather vocabulary.   

The water that passes through that town ends up flowing past my house, I used to have friends in Warminster.

[PDH]

Places like Wyoming are so dry that over a century ago they had to make new water laws for the US West.  Just because that water flows by your house doesn't mean that you can use it unless you have the right to.

[mongers]

Places like Wyoming are so dry that over a century ago they had to make new water laws for the US West.  Just because that water flows by your house doesn't mean that you can use it unless you have the right to.

Interesting.

I read a story a couple of months ago about some teabag type-nutter, out west/in the mountains, who'd in part diverted the river flowing through his land into several man-made lakes and claimed the authorities had no legal right to 'persecute' him.

[PDH]

Interesting.

I read a story a couple of months ago about some teabag type-nutter, out west/in the mountains, who'd in part diverted the river flowing through his land into several man-made lakes and claimed the authorities had no legal right to 'persecute' him.

In the US West (and Australia, I believe), the basic rule is "first in time (to claim), first in right."  That means someone downstream who has an older claim to X amount of water from a stream gets it.  If there are many (and there are), then you have to watch that water flow on by.

People from wetter regions don't quite seem to understand.

[mongers]

Interesting.

I read a story a couple of months ago about some teabag type-nutter, out west/in the mountains, who'd in part diverted the river flowing through his land into several man-made lakes and claimed the authorities had no legal right to 'persecute' him.

In the US West (and Australia, I believe), the basic rule is "first in time (to claim), first in right."  That means someone downstream who has an older claim to X amount of water from a stream gets it.  If there are many (and there are), then you have to watch that water flow on by.

People from wetter regions don't quite seem to understand.

So that guy is both floating the law and the tradition that underpins the legislation. 
I sometimes have 80-90 tonnes a second flowing by, but I don't touch it as agricultural fertilizer run off is a bit of an issue. It's certainly isn't up to what was once called gin water. 

[garbon]

Why does mongers like to tell us about urination and defecation outside?

[PDH]

Why does mongers like to tell us about urination and defecation outside?

Mad dogs and Englishmen.

[mongers]

Why does mongers like to tell us about urination and defecation outside?

Defecate, I've probably done that a handful of time every and always in a properly prepared hole.

As for having a slash whilst out and about, isn't that just a natural thing to do ?