One-Third of China’s Famous Yellow River Polluted
After a recent scientific study by the Yellow River Conservancy Committee, 1/3 of this Chinese river has been show to be polluted with unsafe industrial waste. The study determined that the water quality has dramatically decreased over the last few year and is said to be unsafe for use.
33.8 percent of the river’s water sampled registered worse than level 5, meaning it’s unfit for drinking, aquaculture, industrial use and even agriculture, according to criteria used by the United Nations Environmental Program.
This is an extremely shocking as millions of people in China depend on this river and this pollution could really have dangerous long term affects if something is not done to reverse the pollution. What is even more surprising is that only 16% of the river that was studied was found to be safe for ordinary household usage. This is really sad and many are not surprised of these staggering numbers. Many industrial firms in the area are heavily polluting into the river and are not being held accountable for their actions. Local governments are not properly monitoring these companies and just enabling them to use the river as their personal dumping site.
The biggest problem in China is that the local governments are not taking enough action as they should be. China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection has tried to do further to shut some of these factories down due to their unsafe practices, but have limited power. The local environmental agencies that have the power to do so are not taking the appropriate action. It sounds to me like corruption in the local governments could be the major reason that these ridiculous practices are allow to be continued. It’s good to see that the federal government’s environmental ministry is trying to do more, but they are ineffective with their limited power. Let’s just hope that more can be done either stop these businesses from continuing to pollute as they are or shut them down. This is such a beautiful river as seen from the picture and so many people depend on it for their daily lives.
While the Chinese continue to make progress on their environmental policy, they fall short of what needs to be done – especially with regards to water and air.
The coal-fired plants will be doing their part on the atmosphere for decades to come, and the issues related to water are even worse, as everything ultimately flows to the ocean and the entire planet is affected.
Thats quite sad really. Water……next to air its the one thing that we are entirely dependant on, and yet we continue to dump mass amounts of nasty toxins in all of our waterways……why why why???
Chinese are developing so fast that they are damaging their own resources. They will need a lot more time to solve this problem, since the whole country is focused on getting money and accomplish various economic goals. Let us hope that they will come up with some laws soon and be able to protect their natural resources.