China Claims Yellow River Estuary Cleanest In Years - ENN

[hatrack]

Yeah, OK . . . . 'Cuz if you can't trust the Chinese government, who can you trust?

BEIJING — China's Yellow River delta estuary is the cleanest in years, state media said on Friday, despite recent reports that most China's second-longest river is so polluted it is unsafe for swimming or drinking.

The estuary drains the river, the cradle of early Chinese civilisation, into the Bohai Sea off the booming eastern province of Shandong after a winding, 5,400-km (3,300-mile) journey from its source in the Tibet-Qinghai plateau.

Environmental protection efforts and increased rainfall had expanded the river delta's natural wetlands and attracted bird and fish species that fled the polluted waters years before, the China Daily quoted officials as saying. "The increasing water flow has contributed significantly to the local eco-system revival," an environmental official was quoted as saying.

The sound report card flies in the face of previous studies that have condemned the river system as a toxic drain for sewage, industrial waste, fertiliser and other pollutants. Last year, state media reported that as much as 72.3 percent of the Yellow River, which supplies water to 12 percent of China's 1.3 billion people and 15 percent of its farmland, was unsafe for drinking or swimming.

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