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Algae Choking Another Major Chinese Lake
Beijing (AFP) June 25, 2007 A massive algae bloom has spread out over another of China's big lakes, a press report said Monday, despite hundreds of millions of dollars being spent on years of clean up efforts. "In recent days, due to the hot and humid weather, a large amount of algae has bloomed in Dianchi Lake, turning the water as green as paint in a stretch along the shore near Kunming city," the Oriental Daily reported. "Wave after wave of rolling green lake water laps up on the shore giving off an awful stench." Dianchi, in southwest China's Yunnan province, is the country's sixth largest freshwater lake. It has suffered from severe pollution since the early 1990s and is plagued by algae blooms each summer, the paper said. The bloom comes after algae choked Taihu and Chaohu lakes, China's third and fifth largest freshwater lakes respectively, in late May and early June, underscoring the state of China's degraded water system. More than 70 percent of China's waterways and 90 percent of its underground water are contaminated by pollution, according to the State Environmental Protection Administration. The Taihu scare affected tap water for millions of nearby residents although the poor state of Dianchi means people do not rely on it for drinking supplies. The algae bloom at Dianchi comes despite about 464 million dollars having been spent to clean it up from the early 1990s to 2003, according to a 2006 report from the government's China Research Academy of Environmental Sciences. About 175 million dollars of these funds were from World Bank loans, it said. A report by the US embassy in China said that more than two billion dollars had been spent on cleaning up the lake.
Source: Agence France-Presse Related Links State Environmental Protection Administration Water News - Science, Technology and Politics
Chilean Officials Stunned By Missing Lake
Santiago (AFP) June 21, 2007Officials are trying to solve the mysterious disappearance of a large lake in southern Chile after recently discovering a 30-meter (98-foot) deep crater instead of the body of water. The National Forests Corp. of Chile (CONAF) has asked geologists to investigate what may have caused the unnamed lake to dry up after CONAF officials were stunned to find the empty hole during a routine visit on May 27. |
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