Blue-green algae will reappear in Lake Tai this summer, but residents of Wuxi expect it will be less severe after government efforts to clean up pollutants.
And the fiasco that forced millions of residents to rely on bottled water last year will not be repeated because a freshwater supply from the Yangtze River is now available, with construction work of the diversion completed on Saturday, according to the city's media.
The arrival of drinking water from the Yangtze River means that Wuxi residents will have an alternative when the quality of Lake Tai water deteriorates.
Lake Tai, China's third-largest freshwater lake, experienced an unprecedented blue-green algal bloom last summer. The algae has been attacking the lake every summer for the past decade but last summer's outbreak was the worst on record.
The toxic and foul-smelling algae destroyed plants and fish, triggered government panic and forced residents of nearby Wuxi, in Jiangsu province , to turn off contaminated tap water supplies and switch to bottled water for drinking and showering.
The algal blooms are part of a fallout from decades of breakneck industrialisation and lax environmental controls. Lake Tai, famed for centuries for its beauty, has become one of the mainland's most polluted bodies of water.
