H2-whoa! Twenty lakes vanish a year

• Source: Global Times
• [08:03 November 03 2009]
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Breaking the eco-system

Putting the current state of Dianchi Lake in layman's terms, one expert said it is "terrible indeed."

As the sixth-largest freshwater lake in China, this "pearl of the highland" in southwestern Yunnan Province has been plagued by blue algae in recent years, with the sticky water coating shores like green oil paint.

"In the past, it broke out seasonally, while now it blooms all through the year," the expert, Na Zhongyuan, head of the Institute for Ecological Agriculture of Yunnan Province, told the Global Times Monday.

Instead of manually bringing water in from rivers to fill Dianchi, as is often done with other lakes, "we have changed our plan to internal water treatment, which means improving the ecosystem of the lake," Na said, stressing that it is a long-term solution, not a quick fix.

Effortful treatment

Taihu Lake, the source of drinking water for 4 million Wuxi residents, was hit by a large bloom of blue-green algae in 2007, contaminating the water supply to many households.

But since 2007, the outbreak area and frequency of blue-green algae has been significantly reduced, according to government reports.

"The number of outbreaks has been reduced from 51 in 2007 to 48 this year, and the area dropped from 8,562 square kilometers in 2008 to 4,848 this year," Lu Guihua, deputy director of water resources in Jiangsu Province, said Monday.

However, Taihu still faces severe water pollution, including accumulated internal pollutants that are hard to eliminate quickly. One of the major pollutants came from crabs farming in fenced-off areas of the lake, Lu said.

The government has invested 14.5 million yuan in a five-year cleanup program.

Yu said it is not a matter of funding, but rather how to stop factories from discharging pollutants.