Shanghai's waters improved through official efforts, but further work remains
- By Ni Tao
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, January 20, 2017
My father-in-law is accustomed to watching the evening news while tucking into his dinner.
Once in a while, toward the end of the hard news segment, the TV station will broadcast a special program about the murky, stinky rivers "in our midst." Usually, my father-in-law frowns at the sight of flies swarming over blackened rivers, becoming palpably empathetic toward residents who complain about their environmental plight. My wife, always responsive to cues from her father, would quietly switch to another channel.
At first, I wondered if it had dawned on the TV channel operator that it might not be appropriate to air such revolting imagery at dinner time. Later on, I realized that the timing may be intentional, and intended to provoke thought. However disgusting the imagery is, these news items are a true portrayal of the many heavily polluted rivers and creeks in Shanghai.
The fight against water pollution, especially widespread pollution plaguing an extended network of waterways in Shanghai's suburbs, has been a heated topic at this year's ongoing sessions of the local legislature and political advisory body.
It has been reported that the number of local rivers that measured up to municipal environmental standards by 2016 had surged 22.6 percent year on year. And the percentage of the five worst types of polluted water as a share of the city's entire bodies of waters had also dropped by 22.4 percent.
To its credit, Shanghai's environmental watchdog has invested enormously in tackling water pollution over the years, and these efforts have paid off. If figures don't convey the extent to which Shanghai's rivers have become cleaner, or at least less of an eyesore, a few examples suffice to showcase the long way Shanghai has come in purifying its riparian system.
Shanghai's major efforts to clean up its rivers, lakes and other bodies of water date back to 1998, when the city mustered the resolve to purify the notoriously rank and murky Suzhou Creek.
The long-running cleanup campaign has had many beneficiaries, one of which is the Xujiazhai River in the city's north. Stretching 1.1 kilometers and spanning 9 meters across, this river meanders through willow-lined embankments, with lush pond lilies, sweet flags and reeds swaying and sprouting through its clear, limpid surface.
Who could have thought that barely a decade ago this river was listed as one of the 56 blackened, foul-smelling waterways awaiting urgent cleanup?
Poisonous legacy
The pollution afflicting the Xujiazhai River, and many others, is a poisonous legacy of Shanghai's ill-informed urban planning in the 1980s and early 1990s. At that time, the river was flanked by an aircraft machinery plant, a soya product mill and many other polluters who directly discharged unprocessed sewage into the river. The stench from the waste floating on the river choked pedestrians who came within 50 meters of its banks.
Starting in 2005, the fate of Xujiazhai River was changed for the better as authorities dredged up the silt, removed the pollutants, purified the water, grow environmentally-friendly plants and, most decisively, closed down or relocated polluting businesses in the vicinity.
"Water pollution actually originates from human activity on the ground," Wang Feilin, deputy director of Minhang District's water authority, was once quoted as saying.
Wang was a witness to the metamorphosis of Xupu Village, a water town that had degenerated into an open-air landfill over the past few years.
Located in an area sandwiched between three districts — Minhang, Changning and Jiading — the densely populated village used to be one of the city's largest suburban shantytowns, home to some 30,000 residents, many of whom migrants. Every day, it produced tons of household garbage that slowly but significantly overwhelmed the local ecosystem and the ability of waterways to self-purify.
Amid widespread calls to sweep up the general squalor and filth, Minhang District authorities bulldozed more than 570,000 square meters of what officials call "illegal construction" in 2015. This freed up, according to a local village cadre, space for scaling back water pollution. After scooping over 490 tons of garbage and debris from the river, dredging up the silt, and repairing the ecosystem, Xupu was restored to its original water-town beauty.
Shanghai's fight against water pollution is unique and innovative in many ways. One of the biggest features is the appointment of a "river head" for every river or creek awaiting cleanup. These "river heads" usually are top officials at different levels of the administrative hierarchy, from county chiefs or township governors on down. In a measure designed to keep them on their toes, their names are registered with the Shanghai Water Authority. In the event of a major pollution incident happening in their jurisdiction, they will be the first held accountable.
"Shortest plank"
With institutional innovations like this, Shanghai recently announced an ambitious plan to eliminate almost all of its murky, noisome rivers by 2017, as well as the aforementioned five worst types of polluted water. According to Han Changlai, deputy director of the water resource department at the Shanghai Water Authority, the city's fight against water pollution during the Thirteenth Five-Year Plan (2016-2020) will focus more on the numerous smaller lakes, creeks and rivers that crisscross residential complexes, to better address people's plight.
This is presumably the motivation for the TV channel's special coverage of polluted rivers in our midst. Media reported that Shanghai's Party chief Han Zheng also touched on this issue when he said in November that dirty, rank-smelling creeks have become the "shortest plank" — meaning the Achilles' heel — that mars the environmental watchdog's good work. With a high-profile pledge from our top city official, we can expect smaller waterways to be given pride of place on the agenda of environmental officials in the years to come.
However, apart from smaller rivers, Shanghai's water management system still has one gaping hole that needs to be plugged, according to proposals submitted by some lawmakers this year. For example, lawyer and deputy Qian Yiliang alerted us to the risks that lurk around the city's prized fresh water resources.
Take the Qingcaosha reservoir, a project that cost tens of billions of yuan. It sits across a main shipping route in the Yangtze River. Traffic is busy as more than 100,000 vessels a day sail through the bodies of water near the reservoir. At least a tenth are laden with dangerous chemicals that could deal a devastating blow to the reservoir in the event of a leak.
Alas, existing laws and regulations don't require ship owners to file reports about the kind of cargo onboard. This, according to Qian, is a major security loophole. Ships carrying chemicals have to be made to comply with due reporting procedures before they can be granted free right of passage, he suggested.
If there is anything we can learn from these environmental crises, it is that heightened concerns about human activity and its potential impact on adjoining fresh water resources should be incorporated into the legislation process.
Water management is not a blitzkrieg, rather, it is a battle of attrition that entails courage, patience and also the ability on our officials' part to outsmart and outmaneuver hit-and-run offenders like those nabbed in the recent case.
Hopefully, in the not too distant future, preferably by 2017, I won't have to see my father-in-law's scowling face reacting to news about heavily polluted rivers in Shanghai.
