| Home / Environment / Ecology and China | Tools: Save | Print | E-mail | Most Read |
| Pollution Teaches the Importance of Elixir of Life |
| Adjust font size: |
But all that changed dramatically overnight last week. Taps in the industrial and tourism hub in east "It had never occurred to me that we would not have any water to drink," says the 60-year-old grocery owner Gu. "Since our city is situated on the country's third largest lake, how could that possibly happen?" But happen it did, and all of sudden, on May 28 when the taps in the city began spewing putrid water because of a fast-spreading, foul-smelling, bluish-green algae outbreak in "We found something wrong with the tap water around noon on May 28. It was murky and had a slightly foul smell," Gu recalls. "We didn't take it seriously initially because such things had happened a few times before in the districts close to the By late evening, local TV stations had begun broadcasting warnings issued by the municipal government that said tap water was contaminated and unsafe to drink. "My small bottled-water stock was soon empty as residents scrambled to buy as much water as possible after the announcements on TV," Gu says. By the next day, panic set in among the residents because the quality of water deteriorated instead of improving. It had become yellowish and gave out a strong foul smell. The panic spread to businesses, especially in the services sector, too. In fact, Wang Juan, a budget hotel logistics manager, ordered 20 boxes of bottled water even before the government had issued the warnings. By the next day, such was the crisis and the accompanying panic buying that the city had run out of enough supply of bottled water. Prices shot up as unscrupulous shopkeepers and suppliers tried to make an extra buck at the expense of people's desperation, says the 33-year-old Wang. "But even then I didn't expect the crisis to last so long, and I guess others thought the same." Algae outbreak in "The beautiful lake used to be our pride and our city's business trump card," says Tan Yun, a middle-aged taxi driver. "But now the blessing has turned into a curse." Although billions of yuan have been spent to clean up the lake, the situation keeps deteriorating because the flow of pollutants into it far outpaces the clean-up drive, say experts and residents. Continuous and unusually high temperatures in May, lack of rainfall and the lowest water level in 50 years in the lake, say experts, are the main reasons for this year's unprecedented algae outbreak. Such was the intensity of the outbreak that it covered almost 70 percent of the lake surface. "It's largely a man-made crisis," a local newspaper quoted The quality of tap water has improved since. It was declared normal over the weekend, and the one-week crisis appears to be over thanks to the local government's strenuous efforts and the mercy of the weather. Local authorities have induced artificial rainfall, diverted water from the Also, the government has taken up a concerted campaign to clean up the lake. "The ordeal is partly over," says Zhang Chen, with a sigh of relief. The owner of a small barbershop, who too suffered a fall in business because of the water crisis, says: "Apart from the poor business, the most disgusting and uncomfortable part was not being able to take a bath over the past week." The situation, however, is still not normal, for that will take some time, say experts. Flushing out the putrid water completely from the intricate and massive network of pipelines and tanks is a lengthy process, says Zhou Xiaojian, a professor with environmental science and engineering department of And if the temperature rises unusually high again in the next couple months and the water level remains low, the lake could see another outbreak of algae, says Hu Weiping, a researcher with the But to prevent that from happening, the local government has decided to launch an eight-point environmental campaign to clean the lake. The measures include the shutting down of small chemical plants around the lake and building more waste water plants to treat sewage. The local government has taken every possible hazard into consideration, and sees the crisis in the proper perspective. "We should have a clear understanding and be well prepared that cleaning up and protecting Taihu Lake is a major ecological and environment task, an arduous, complex and long-term job that cannot be addressed overnight," a government report issued on Sunday said. Residents, on their part, have learnt a valuable lesson. Says hotel logistics manager Wang: "Never before did we take water-saving seriously. We hadn't thought environmental degradation could hurt us this way I think everyone in the city will now take environmental protection more seriously." For Grocery owner Gu the crisis was a wake-up call. "It's time we restored the beauty of the The ( |
| Tools: Save | Print | E-mail | Most Read |
 |
| Related Stories |
|
|||
