Worms found in heavily-polluted tap water in SW Chinese city   

甘肃静宁现水污染：自来水管内有1厘米长虫子(图)

在甘肃东南的这座山区县城，喝上一口干净水，如今几乎成了一种奢望。县城10公里外的东峡水库，原本是13万人口赖以生存的饮用水源，从去年开始水质一度降为劣V类，而主水源地“甘泉调水”，同样面临着严重的污染。上游隆德县的淀粉企业多年连续排污让静宁县不堪重负，而当两个县都意识到污染问题迫在眉睫时，静宁的水已经不能喝了。 [查看全文]

(ECNS) -- Clean drinking water is a luxury people in Jingning county of northwest China's Gansu province have yet to enjoy, with worms measuring around 1cm found in the local supply, Beijing Youth Daily reported on Wednesday.

In 2014, the Health Bureau in Jingning conducted 167 water quality tests with 63.5 percent meeting safe drinking standards. News that the water supply was not safe spread quickly amongst its 130,000 inhabitants.

Jingning's two water sources have been contaminated further upstream, by Delong county in neighboring Ningxia Hui autonomous region, over the past thirteen years. A number of small companies in Delong have contributed to the county's economic development; however, they also produce a large amount of untreated waste water, which flows into Yu River and causes pollution across Jingning.

Jingning and Delong are only 42 kilometres apart, but are situated in Gansu and Ningxia provinces respectively, which makes responsibility for water treatment more complicated.

Mechanisms to handle the issue are being established at the Ministry of Environment Protection with 38 million yuan ($6.1 million) to be invested in Yu River water treatment, including the establishment of a waste water treatment plant, the newspaper stated.