River still polluted after cleanup efforts

The Huaihe River basin remains heavily polluted despite more than a decade's efforts to clean it, water officials said yesterday.

In a report to the National People's Congress, the Huaihe River commission under the Ministry of Water Resources, said the country had failed to control the amount of pollutants dumped into the river, the Xinhua News Agency reported yesterday.

And the situation remains serious because the amount of wastewater being discharged into the river by provinces within the basin exceeds national standards, the report said.

Despite the negative report, Wang Bin, deputy director of the commission, said pollution-control efforts had "reaped some fruit".

For instance, the chemical oxygen demand (COD), an important indicator of water pollutants, was 851,800 tons last year, its lowest level since the government launched its campaign to clean up the Huaihe in 1993.

However, the figure was still about 30 percent above the target level.

Wang said the discharge of wastewater into the river was the main reason for the continued pollution.
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