At the beginning of this year, the Yellow River Basin Water Resources Protection Bureau organized an expert group to conduct a quantitative analysis of the status and harm of water pollution in the Yellow River. It was found that nearly 40% of the water quality in the main stream of the Yellow River was worse than Category 5 and basically lost its quality. Water body functions. With economic development, wastewater discharge in the Yellow River Basin has doubled compared to the 1980s, reaching 4.4 billion cubic meters, and pollution incidents continue to occur. Most of the tributaries in the upper reaches of the Yellow River are polluted to varying degrees, while the water quality of almost all tributaries in the middle and lower reaches has been in worse than Category 5 condition for many years, and the tributaries have become "sewage rivers".
The main drainage channel of Wuliangsuhai is a main drainage channel leading to the Yellow River in Bayannur City, Inner Mongolia. The reporter saw that there are many papermaking, coking and other enterprises distributed along this main drainage line. These highly polluting enterprises vary in size. Once the environmental protection facilities are out of operation or there are no treatment facilities, a large amount of pollutants will be discharged directly into the Yellow River. , affecting the safety of downstream water supply.
At the beginning of this year, the Baotou section of the Yellow River encountered unprecedented serious pollution represented by volatile phenol. Volatile phenol, ammonia nitrogen, etc. exceeded the standard by several to dozens of times. Since the main water source for production and living in Baotou City comes from the Yellow River, 120 Millions of citizens can only bite the bullet and drink the "bitter water". The reporter saw in the information reported by the Baotou Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau to the National Bureau that the main source of volatile phenol pollution in the Yellow River was the discharge from the Wuliangsuhai total drainage, while the ammonia nitrogen pollution mainly came from Ningxia and Baotou.
The "culprit" Yanhuang: The phenomenon of illegal discharge of key pollution sources is still serious. The "Fifteen Small" and "New Five Small" enterprises have many areas and are difficult to eradicate
Industrial pollution has always been It is the "culprit" of water pollution in the Yellow River. From Qinghai, through Gansu, Ningxia, to Inner Mongolia, high-pollution industrial enterprises such as energy, heavy chemicals, non-ferrous metals, and papermaking are numerous along the Yellow River, producing products including COD (chemical oxygen demand), ammonia nitrogen, heavy metals, and permanganate. Index and a large number of pollutants including volatile phenols. Due to the large investment in environmental protection facilities and high operating costs, the phenomenon of illegal discharge of key pollution sources along the Yellow River is still serious, and some "15 Small" and "New Five Small" enterprises have many sites and are difficult to eradicate.
During an interview in Baiyin City, Gansu Province, cadres from the local environmental protection department guided the reporter to inspect the Dongdagou, which runs directly across the city into the Yellow River. This natural flood drainage ditch has now become a sewage ditch. Before people got out of the car, the stench from the sewage in the ditch hit their noses. The red acidic wastewater in the river flowed slowly. The small branch ditch next to it also injected small streams of green water from time to time. The soil on the river beach was Eroded by sewage, it takes on a metallic copper color. Officials from the Baiyin City Environmental Protection Bureau said that there are eight or nine polluting companies along Dongdagou, including domestic sewage, and nearly 50,000 cubic meters of wastewater are discharged into the Yellow River every day. The largest source of pollution comes from the smelting of Baiyin Nonferrous Metals Company. The plant, an old copper smelting enterprise that has been in operation for more than 40 years, has seriously aged equipment. Although the relevant departments of the state and Gansu Province have repeatedly tried to control it within a time limit, it has no effect so far. Now more than 8,000 cubic meters of acidic wastewater is discharged directly into the Yellow River every day. The content of heavy metals such as copper, lead, zinc, and arsenic in wastewater exceeds national standards by dozens to thousands of times. "The original main source of drinking water for residents in Baiyin District was located downstream of Dongdagou, just over 200 meters away from the entrance to the Yellow River. Now the water here has stopped supplying water to the city because the water quality after purification is difficult to meet standards," the environmental protection cadre said sadly. .
The status quo of "death": Domestic sewage and "agricultural pollution" are showing an increasing trend. Wuliangsuhai Lake is on the verge of extinction
During the investigation along the way, the reporter found that in addition to industrial pollution, domestic sewage and "Agricultural pollution" caused by excessive application of chemical fertilizers and pesticides is also currently showing an increasing trend, and its proportion continues to increase. At the same time, some cities along the Yellow River pile up and dump household garbage along the river, exacerbating the pollution of the Yellow River section.
The increasingly serious water pollution of the Yellow River has seriously damaged the Yellow River ecosystem, causing aquatic life in the river to be on the verge of extinction. In the 1950s, Lanzhou City's Yantan beach was covered with red willows and reeds, home to more than a dozen species of water birds such as bar-headed geese and plateau partridges. Today, there is no trace of these bird species. In the early 1960s, the number of fish growing in the Gansu section of the Yellow River was greatly reduced, and some have become extinct. Even the blue and white stone melons, a specialty of Lanzhou that Lanzhou people are proud of, have deteriorated in quality in recent years due to the use of polluted Yellow River water.
According to statistics from the Gansu Provincial Environmental Protection Bureau, the Gansu section of the Yellow River discharges 237 million tons of wastewater annually, of which domestic sewage discharge has reached 141 million tons, accounting for 59.5% of the total wastewater discharge.
The Yellow River flows through four cities in Gansu. Currently, only Lanzhou City has four sewage treatment plants with a daily treatment capacity of only 158,000 tons. Moreover, the sewage treatment fee collected by Lanzhou City is only 0.2 yuan per cubic meter. The sewage treatment fee collected by the city can only maintain the operation of a sewage treatment plant with a daily processing capacity of 100,000 tons. Zhao Weimin, director of the Gansu Provincial Environmental Protection Bureau, said that as the only provincial capital city with the Yellow River passing through the city, Lanzhou City’s current sewage pipe network penetration rate is only 12.2%. The small sewage treatment and collection capacity is far from being able to handle the increasing urban sewage discharge. As a result, sewage pipes and sewage ditches are densely covered along the Yellow River, and a large amount of domestic sewage is discharged directly into the Yellow River. The reporter found that this problem is common in many cities along the Yellow River.
The increasingly polluted Yellow River not only affects the industrial and agricultural production in the areas along the river, but more seriously, it directly threatens the ecological environment and the drinking water safety of the people along the Yellow River. Wuliangsuhai in Bayannur City, Inner Mongolia is the largest freshwater lake in the Yellow River Basin. Currently, 500 million cubic meters of wastewater is injected into the lake area every year, of which 50 million cubic meters are discharged into the Yellow River. The reporter saw in Wuliangsuhai that the water body had turned black. As industrial wastewater, especially agricultural water with a high content of pesticides and chemical fertilizers, is injected into the lake area, the eutrophication of the water area is intensified, aquatic plants and reeds grow wildly, the open water surface of the lake area shrinks, and the lake bottom rises faster.
Yang Jiezhong, director of the Bayannur Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau, said: "The water quality of Wuliangsuhai is basically in the worse than fifth category, and 19 species of fish have become extinct in the former fishing ground. In 2002, the largest fish found was It is less than 3 liang. If measures are not taken as soon as possible, not only will the Yellow River be endangered, but this important wetland will also disappear in 20 to 40 years."
"Poisonous water" water quality: nearly 100 acres of wheat. Villagers who were burned to death after irrigating sewage water often had diarrhea after drinking water
The Huangshui River is an important tributary of the upper reaches of the Yellow River. It flows for about 300 kilometers in Qinghai Province, and its drainage basin contains more than 60% of Qinghai Province's land. population and most of the industrial and agricultural production. However, as the discharge of industrial wastewater and urban domestic wastewater has increased year by year in recent years, with the annual discharge reaching nearly 200 million cubic meters, the water quality pollution of the Huangshui River has worsened sharply. Especially in the river sections after entering Xining City, the water quality during the dry season is basically Category 5 or worse than Category 5. In 2002, nearly 100 acres of wheat in Dongzhuang Village, Ping'an County, Haidong Prefecture, Qinghai Province, were irrigated with polluted Huangshui and burned alive. Wang Chengfa, a villager from Dongzhuang Village who was watering the fields at the head of the field, told reporters: "Now when we use Huangshui to irrigate the fields, we must first check the water in the river. If there is too much water, we dare to pour it. If there is too little water, if it is poured into the ground, the seedlings will be burned to death."
In Midan Township, Jingyuan County, Gansu Province, villagers have long been drinking water from the Yellow River that has undergone simple sedimentation. Villagers said there was often white sediment in the pot, they often had diarrhea after drinking the water, and their skin was cracked and peeling after washing their faces. "The water is so salty that people can't eat it, and the tea made from it is too salty to drink. There are dark things floating in the river, which look like oil," said villager Tao Guocai.
When the reporter interviewed the Yellow River Water Plant in Shizuishan City, Ningxia, he learned that since 2001, due to the sharp decline in the water quality of the Yellow River, the treatment difficulty of the water plant has continued to increase. The content of ammonia nitrogen and volatile phenol in the water was too high, which consumed a large amount of chlorine used for sterilization. The water plant had to increase the amount of chlorine added from the original 0.15 mg per liter of water to about 4 mg for clarification and treatment. Organic medicines are also increasing exponentially. The water plant was forced to stop processing twice last year and again this spring. Zhang Yuhe, deputy director of the water plant, said: "When the dry season is at its worst, it feels like we are treating sewage. Even the water that has been treated now still tastes bad and sometimes has a strange smell. Now about 70,000 people are drinking this kind of water. Water, the water supply scope of the water plant will continue to expand in the future.”