Last week the Chinese environment ministry said 16% of China’s soil contains higher-than-permitted levels of pollution.
Now, the ministry of land and resources says 59.6% of the nation’s water is either moderately or seriously polluted. That’s up 2.2 percentage points year-over-year.
China was reminded of just how serious it water pollution remains earlier this month, when residents of the city of Lanzhou (population 2 million) were ordered to avoid drinking tap water following the discovery of levels of benzene some 20 times the national limit. The carcinogenic chemical was later found to have made its way into the city’s water supply as the result of a crude-oil leak.
A few years ago the government launched a massive project to clean and conserve water but the Chinese model of growth is virtually incompatible with environmental restraint.
