Water supplies cut in south China city due to oil slick: report

Yahoo News 18 Feb 08;

Water supplies to about 100,000 residents in a southern Chinese city were suspended on the weekend after a two-kilometre (1.2-mile) oil slick tainted a local river, state media reported Monday.

Domestic water supplies to about half of the population of Foshan in Guangdong province were cut for about six hours on Saturday, Xinhua news agency said.

Local environment officials said that the water was now safe to drink after the oil pollution scare forced restaurants and businesses to close and sparked a surge in bottled water sales, according to the report.

"Tests show the water is safe to drink, but we will keep on monitoring the water quality of the river," said an official surnamed Li with the city's publicity department, according to Xinhua.

No information was given as to how the oil slick emerged on the river, with Xinhua saying that environmental authorities had launched an investigation.

However Foshan is a major manufacturing and industrial hub, giving rise to speculation one of the many factories operating near the river may have been the source of the oil slick.

No pollutants were found in the upper reaches of the Xijiang River, which is a major water resource for Foshan and four other cities in south China, Xinhua said.

But the Nanfang Daily, a local newspaper in Guangdong, said on Sunday that Heshan city, to the south of Foshan, may now be at risk from the slick.

Three decades of unchecked industrialisation have led to massive contamination of China's water supplies and reports of polluting factories causing disruptions to water supplies emerge frequently.

More than 70 percent of the country's waterways and 90 percent of its underground water is polluted, according to previously released government figures.

Water Back In South China City After Oil Spill
PlanetArk 19 Feb 08;

BEIJING - China has reassured residents in a south China city that their water is safe to drink after an oil pollution scare at the weekend left 100,000 residents cut off from supplies, Xinhua news agency reported on Monday.


Much of the city of Foshan, in the Hong Kong border province of Guangdong, was without water for several hours on Saturday after a white, foul-smelling slick was spotted in the Xijiang River, forcing an emergency operation to clean up the spill.

"Tests show the water was safe to drink, but we will keep on monitoring the water quality in the river," Xinhua quoted an official surnamed Li in Foshan's publicity department as saying.

China is fighting widespread environmental degradation that threatens many of its vital water sources.

In 2005, millions of residents in the northern city of Harbin were without water for weeks after an explosion at an industrial plant sent toxic chemicals streaming into the Songhua River.

Last week, a Chinese tanker truck carrying more than 30 tonnes of sulphuric acid crashed in the southwest of the country, spilling its load and causing what state media described as "serious pollution".

Environment officials were investigating the source of the spill in the Xijiang, a tributary of the Pearl River.

(Reporting by Lindsay Beck, editing by Ken Wills and Sanjeev Miglani)