China needs US$147 billion to clean its urban rivers, environment ministry says
Local authorities have to build 400,000km of waste water pipelines to help treat pollution problem, official says
China will need more than 1 trillion yuan (US$147.4 billion) to build a massive network of waste water pipelines to reduce heavy pollution in urban rivers, the environment ministry said on Thursday.
China is running a high-profile anti-pollution drive designed to reverse the damage done to its skies, soil and water since it opened up its economy in 1978 and embarked on a programme of breakneck growth.
Under a national water pollution action plan published in 2015, China’s cities are under pressure to cut what authorities call “black and stinky water” to less than 10 per cent of rivers in urban areas by 2020.
Zhang Bo, director of the water department at the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, said local authorities needed to build another 400,000km (248,000 miles) of waste water pipelines to help treat the problem.
But with each kilometre costing 3 million yuan, governments needed to raise water treatment prices to cover it.
