Sewage discharged into rivers

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Nearly 76 percent of the sewage generated in Guangdong province last year was directly discharged into local rivers, the province reported on Monday.

The Guangdong Provincial Department of Water Resources published the findings in the Bulletin of Guangdong's Water Resources in 2011.

The amount of sewage discharged in the southern province reached 12.53 billion metric tons in the previous year, up 110 million tons from 2010, the bulletin reported.

Industrial wastewater represented 55 percent while domestic sewage accounted for the remaining 45 percent of the sewage discharged in Guangdong in 2011.

More than 9.5 billion tons of the sewage, or 75.8 percent of the total, was directly discharged into local rivers, the bulletin said.

The major river systems in Guangdong are the Pearl River Basin, the Hanjiang River Valley, and rivers in the eastern and western parts of the province. According to the year-end report, the water quality of rivers in eastern Guangdong is the worst, with 30 percent of them heavily polluted.

Because of the serious pollution, the water quality of major rivers within Guangdong province is poor, threatening the health of local residents who live along the province's riverbanks, the bulletin said.

More than 54.8 percent of the sewage that has directly been discharged into rivers in 2011 was reported in the affluent Pearl River Delta, one of the economic engines on the Chinese mainland.

Wang Xiaojun, a professor of environmental engineering at South China University of Technology, said the bulletin by the provincial department of water resources indicated that government departments in the province still have a lot of work to do to meet their goals of curbing Guangdong's water pollution in the coming years.

"Relevant governments should expand investment in building and maintaining sewage-treatment plants, sewage networks and pipelines in the future," Wang told China Daily on Monday.

He attributed the province's worsening water pollution to the lack of investment in sewage treatment in some areas, particularly in the under developed and remote cities and counties in western, northern and eastern parts of the province.

Chen Guangrong, deputy director of the provincial department of environmental protection, said the Guangdong provincial government has promised to improve the water quality over a larger area in the future.

Questions:

1. How much sewage was discharged into the rivers in the Guangdong province last year?

2. What does the professor of environmental engineering think is to blame for the sewage problem?

3. How many metric tons of sewage were released in the Southern province?

Answers:

1. Nearly 76 percent.

2. A lack of investment in sewage treatment.

3. 12.53 billion metric tons.

About the broadcaster:

Rosie Tuck is a copy editor at the China Daily website. She was born in New Zealand and graduated from Auckland University of Technology with a Bachelor of Communications studies majoring in journalism and television. In New Zealand she was working as a junior reporter for the New Zealand state broadcaster TVNZ. She is in Beijing on an Asia New Zealand Foundation grant, working as a journalist in the English news department at the China Daily website.