New water quality data fail to satisfy public

(Ecns.cn)--Beijing on Tuesday started making more comprehensive water quality information available online in a move to allay public concern over drinking water safety.

By the end of this year, all water supply companies are expected to regularly release monitoring data. Authorities also require major suppliers to monitor 106 quality indicators, including the intensity of pesticide residue, the concentration of heavy metals and the amount of coliform bacteria.

However, numbers alone will not guarantee an improvement in quality, experts say.

"Releasing information is not enough. The public is still worried about water quality because they don't understand what all the indicators mean," says Li Bo, director of Friends of Nature, China's oldest environmental NGO.

The new regulation has also been criticized as having no teeth: Violator penalties have yet to be mentioned, and only 40 percent of China's 35 key cities are equipped to test for all the indicators, reports New Century Magazine.

Moreover, all monitoring so far has been done by water supply firms themselves, which undermines the credibility of their data, Liu Rui (alias) explained during an interview with China Economic Weekly. Liu works at the state-run Beijing Municipal Water Supply Monitoring Center, where employees have cited conflicting information about water quality, fomenting even further distrust among the public.

Shao Yi, a director there, says that only 58.2 percent of China's tap water met quality standards in 2009. Yet his colleague Song Lan, a chief engineer, argues that the percentage was higher: "Out of over 4,000 water supply companies the center investigated in 2009, more than 1,000 produced unqualified drinking water."

The Chinese Center for Disease Control (CCDC) is also involved in the supervision process and runs tests of water quality once or twice a year. "However, our analysis can't be published until it gets approval from the government," says Bai Kang (not his real name), who has worked at the CCDC for over a decade.

A third-party water-quality testing institution should be established, industry experts advise. "Such an institution would be responsible for testing, not monitoring. It would serve as a neutral technical department only," says Zhao Feihong, who works at the Water Quality Laboratory.

Market-based reforms may be another option, suggests China Economic Weekly. "The key is to separate government functions from management of enterprises," an expert was quoted as saying.

A company in Shenzhen, a "special economic zone" city in south China's Guangdong Province, has had some success with that model.

The Shenzhen Water Group has optimized its corporate structure by bringing in two more shareholders, including a foreign company, which holds 5 percent of the group's shares.

The partners have injected new life into the formerly state-owned enterprise. "Equipment from France-based Veolia Water is quite advanced. New senior managers are experienced and well-educated. Many of them have master's or doctoral degrees," says Liu Rui.

The government serves as more of a supervisor than a business operator, adds Bai Kang.

The Shenzhen Water Group has become a leading company nationwide in management, service and technology, and releases water quality information monthly in local newspapers.