AFTER ceaseless efforts to treat polluted rivers last year resulted in substantial improvements in water quality, the city government has promised there will be no letup in the fight against water pollution.

According to the city’s water affairs bureau, the government will spend 33.6 billion yuan (US$5.31 billion) on 397 projects this year, including 272 projects started in 2017. The projects will focus on building pipelines, upgrading water purification plants, cleaning up rivers, and monitoring sewage discharge enterprises.

The projects will see through the construction of 2,353 kilometers of sewage pipelines, the separation of sewage drains from rainwater drains in 5,520 housing estates, 153 kilometers of river cleanup, and the initiation of cleanup work on 133 polluted river sections. All sewage outlets into rivers will be eliminated, and 62 heavily polluted river sections will return to a clean state, according to the bureau. Nineteen water purification plants will be upgraded, leading to an increase in water treatment capacity of 460,000 tons per day, and elevated standards for treated water output of 2.08 million tons a day.

Last year, Shenzhen’s Party and government officials at municipal, district and subdistrict levels were named river chiefs in a campaign to clean up rivers.

Under the rule, the officials are responsible for managing the cleanliness of the city’s 148 rivers.

Wang Weizhong, Shenzhen’s Party chief, and Mayor Chen Rugui are the river chiefs responsible for the treatment of the Maozhou River, one of the most seriously polluted rivers in Guangdong, and the Shenzhen River, which borders Shenzhen and Hong Kong, respectively.

The river chiefs are commissioned with six tasks in coordinating and supervising water resources: protection, water safety, water pollution prevention and treatment, water environment restoration, water coastline administration and law enforcement.

Last year’s efforts have led to the purification of 36 (or 45 sections of) heavily polluted rivers and the completion of separating sewage discharge from rainwater drainage in 1,464 housing estates.

A total of 1,599 companies were investigated last year for illegally discharging industrial sewage. Thirty-three of them were closed and 11 criminal cases were filed.

(SD News)