Chinese facing up to pollution in Yangtze River

Well, the Yangtze River Dolphin is a lost cause, but the Chinese -- at least some of them -- are realizing that the Yangtze River itself is one of their most important natural resources -- and they've been exploiting and trashing it for decades. Apparently there's a new awareness that they have to get their act together collectively (or socialistically, whatever works), or the state of the Yangtze will continue to go steeply downhill. The flooding and associated trash and debris of the past couple of months accentuated awareness; will it actually motivate action that can accomplish something?

Clean-up bid for Yangtze set to begin (Xinhuanet)

A weekly report released by the Environmental Monitoring of China agency on Aug 17 revealed that just two of the 18 monitoring stations along the Yangtze River graded the water quality as good.

The total volume of sewage discharged into the river reached nearly 30 billion tons, including at least 9 billion tons of domestic sewage in 2005*, according to an annual report by the Yangtze River Water Resources Commission.

* which probably means it's worse now!

The river is facing serious pollution with tons of sewage discharged into it every second, Ma Yi, deputy chief of the regional bureau of East China Sea fishery management, which is affiliated to the Ministry of Agriculture, told the Shanghai-based Oriental Morning Post in July.