While some senior Guanghzou officials are preparing for a Pearl River swim this summer, others are finding excuses for not taking the plunge and an environmental expert has questioned the value of the exercise.
Guangzhou party secretary Lin Shusen's proposal for a swim by 10,000 people in the heavily polluted waterway has won the support of Guangdong Governor Huang Huahua .
But an expert familiar with pollution levels in the river said he doubted whether the water quality would be good enough for a swim and it was a case of Guangzhou officials 'beating their chests'.
'Making it clean enough to swim in for one day is not a problem but we must guarantee we are not doing this just to keep a promise ... otherwise it is manipulative. It doesn't benefit the nation or the people,' he said.
A short-term cleanup of the river for the swim might call for water to be released from reservoirs upriver, but 'they have not mentioned this measure, they dare not', he said.
The expert said the leaders were probably impatient to see results after spending billions of yuan on cleaning up the Pearl River since 1994.
