Yahoo News 3 Nov 09;
BEIJING (AFP) – Officials in China have called for special laws to halt pollution of the nation's thousands of lakes, which are drying up at a rate of about 20 per year, state media reported.
Chen Zhili, one of China's top legislators, urged the establishment of special lake protection regulations and stricter supervision of industrial, agricultural and household waste, the official Xinhua news agency said.
Speaking at the 13th World Lake Conference in the central city of Wuhan late Monday, she also called for the eradication of outdated production methods that led to massive waste, Xinhua reported.
China, which has long suffered from severe water pollution, has invested billions of dollars in cleaning up its waterways, but according to Xinhua, 20 of its 24,800 lakes are disappearing each year.
In addition, nearly 90 percent of China's lakes have eutrophic water rich in nutrients -- often linked to pollution -- that cause excessive growth of aquatic plants, reducing oxygen and often killing off animals.
Taihu Lake in the eastern province of Jiangsu, for example, has been massively polluted by dumping of sewage as well as industrial and agricultural waste, and is now plagued with algae.
In another example, two major algae blooms in Erhai Lake in the southwestern province of Yunnan between 1996 and 2003 triggered problems with drinking water supplies, according to Xinhua.
China has in the past jailed environmentalists who led outspoken campaigns against the nation's persistent pollution problems.
Wu Lihong, who fought for years to end the chronic industrial pollution of Taihu Lake, was jailed for three years in August 2007 for blackmail and fraud.
Wu insisted at the time the charges were trumped up, alleging the local government was trying to silence his accusations that the lake's pollution was largely the fault of officials who had colluded with local businesses.
China's minister of water resources, Chen Lei, called at the conference in Wuhan for "strict supervision and punishment over illegal activities", the report said.
