Quenching thirst with tourism(2)

With half of the parks near the dam still under construction, Chen said the local government had raised 300 million yuan ($48 million), a majority of which was from the private sector, to build tourism attractions to create jobs and rejuvenate the economy.

An anonymous source from the SNWD office with the State Council told the Global Times that the central government will sponsor Danjiangkou with 200 million yuan every year to make up for what the city has sacrificed for the country.

"We are encouraged to develop tourism but environmental protection must always stay first," said Chen.

The delicate environment

Danjiangkou is not the only city facing this dilemma.

Other cities listed on the State Council's middle route tourism development plan, such as Anyang in Henan Province, face a similar problem - maintaining economic growth while keeping a lid on pollution.

Located at the heart of the North China Plain, Anyang cut off its water supply on January 6 as 8.7 tons of aniline was leaked into the nearby river from further upstream in neighboring Shanxi Province.

"The water diversion project in the Anyang area was not affected by the pollution incident and will not be affected in the future," a spokesperson for the Anyang office of the project assured the Global Times.

Hao said the water route was designed to not come in contact with any local water bodies to prevent pollution.

Anyang has long been known as a hub for the production of construction materials and heavy industry companies. These industries, while contributing significantly to the local economy, have generated a tremendous amount of pollution over the years.

The local environmental protection bureau declined to answer questions from the Global Times as of Thursday.

"This new plan to create tourism zones along the water route is, for a majority part, an effort to stop water contamination," an official from the SNWD office at the State Council, who demanded anonymity, told the Global Times.

"The government is trying to find a sustainable model to change the pollution-prone local industries along the project's middle route that will benefit the water providers, the carriers and the users," the official said.

A thirsty nation

Even today, it is still not clear how much the government will charge residents for water that is delivered from thousands of miles away, by what is possibly the most expensive water project ever. And the situation is exacerbated by the fact that water quality in northern China has seen obvious deterioration in recent years.

The concentration of nitrite in Beijing's tap water has quadrupled since 2007 and reached nine milligrams per liter, shortly below the national standard of 10 milligrams.

Even if it is technically defined as safe, few people drink it these days.

"People in Beijing are eagerly looking forward to the clean water delivered by this project," Ma Jun, an environmental activist and chief of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, told the Global Times, adding that the key question is how to deliver the clean water on the way. It is no easy task and something the government cannot afford to fail.