Nearly 12 per cent of Guangdong's estuaries remain severely polluted and have not improved in the past year, the province's top environmental watchdog said yesterday.
Chen Guangrong, deputy chief of Guangdong's environmental protection department, told a press conference on the state of the province's environment that 11.8 per cent of the water in Guangdong's estuaries was classified as 'worse than class five' - equivalent to 'severely polluted'.
'The estuaries of the Shenzhen and Lianjiang rivers are the two main culprits,' Chen said.
Guangdong's provincial environmental quality report for 2011 said pollutants in 'severely polluted' estuaries were mainly domestic waste, measured by dissolved oxygen, ammonia nitrogen, total phosphorus and chemical oxygen demand.
The report said another 11.8 per cent of estuaries were classified as 'class four' - 'lightly polluted'.
Last year's results do not show any improvement from 2010.
Hong Kong-based Greenpeace campaigner Ada Kong Cheuk-san said little had changed since 2007. 'The river estuaries mentioned have been consistently worse than class five for five years,' she said. 'If environmental protection regulation has been effectively implemented, there shouldn't be any water found below such condition. This is unacceptable by any standard.'