Untreated Hospital Waste Water Pollutes Yangtze River.
However, human activity also poses a great threat to its water quality.
In May 2016, the ministry initiated a project to restore the quality of urban drinking water by policing illegal sources of pollution in what it calls the “Yangtze economic zone.” However, a notice from the ministry sent out on Sunday and seen by Sixth Tone listed more than 100 remaining pollution problems in some 40 localities.
Most are in the southwestern provinces of Guizhou and Sichuan, parts of which are relatively underdeveloped.
When the ministry’s project first started in 2016, 490 sources of drinking water pollution were found in 126 cities around the country.
An official from the Ministry of Environmental Protection stated in March that 90 percent of China’s urban drinking water is above national standards.
While the ministry’s cleanup focuses on sources of urban drinking water, Deng also warns that the water quality for rural regions is a bigger problem that will need to be tackled in the future.
Editor: Kevin Schoenmakers.
(Header image: A culvert discharges sewage into the Yangtze River in Yichang, Hubei province, May 21, 2015.
Jin He/VCG)