China to Invest Largely in Treating Water Pollution    

The Chinese government has decided to invest tens of billions of RMB in developing technologies to treat water pollution, according to the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) on January 14th, 2008.
    The State Council has approved three big state-funded programs for the research and development of such technologies on December 26th, 2007.
    "The programs, to last between 2008 and 2020, will support researches of technologies to remedy pollution of rivers, lakes, drinking water and those to monitor the water body environment", said Zhao Yingmin, a SEPA official.
    The survey, titled "2007 environmental protection and people's livelihood index," showed that 32.3% of Chinese were unsatisfied with the local water environment while 20% were not content with the sanitation of drinking water in public places.
    A project under the program will be carried out at Taihu Lake in the eastern Jiangsu province. It had suffered a serious blue algae outbreak in summer 2007, threatening the tap water supply of residents in the lakeside city.
    "The local environment authority will actively cooperate with experts to help improve the water quality of the lake," said Shi Zhenhua, head of the provincial environmental department.