Vice Minister Pan Yue of the State Environmental Protection Administration of China (SEPA) announced on April 29 in Beijing to initiate the contingency plan starting from now on to July in order to ensure the safety of the drinking water for the masses living in the Huaihe valley during the severe dry period of the river.
 
Compared with the same period of last year the water supply of the Huaihe River in the dry period this year was reduced to one third according to the monitoring released by the China Environment Monitoring Bureau.

The contradiction between water shortage and pollution is aggravated further with reduced water quality and self-purification ability, causing the safe crises for drinking water in some areas.

The SEPA made a special research on the situation together with the Ministry of Construction, Ministry of Water Resources as well as the four provincial people's governments of Henan, Anhui, Shandong and Jiangsu according to the spirit of "Notice on Strengthening the Prevention and Control Work of Water Pollution in the Huaihe River Valley'' issued by the General Office of the State Council and they have decided to launch the state contingency plan immediately.

It is reported the following measures will be adopted during the emergency period:

Heavy pollution enterprises are required to reduce discharge and stop operation. The first group of the heavy pollution enterprises is those in the sensitive river sections of the floodgate of Bangbu, the Hongru River, the Shaying River and the Wo River along the main stream of the Huaihe River.

Dispatch the sluicing amount of the floodgate rationally. There have been more than 5,300 large- and middle-scale reservoirs (sluices and dams) in the basin of the Huaihe River at present with insufficient normal ecological base flows. It is in the hope that the related departments can make a scientific plan to control the sluices of the reservoirs in the upper and lower reaches of the river in prevention of causing water pollution accident.

(People's Daily April 30, 2005)