SHANGHAI: Economic growth in the Yangtze River Delta has not been entirely benign.

While the region has developed fast and people's incomes have increased, certain negative factors have emerged, with industrial pollution being one of the most serious problems.

Experts point out that the Yangtze River Delta has become one of the most threatened ecological systems in the country, due to a series of environmental problems including acid rain, a shortage of clean water, and the accumulation of solid pollutants.

The Yangtze River Delta region is an industrial base in the fields of steel, chemicals, petrochemicals and building materials manufacturing. This industrial structure largely determines its high-energy consumption and associated environmental challenges.

Coal consumption in Shanghai jumped to 72.66 million tons in 2004, up from 36.57 million tons in 1992, according to www.secidc.org.cn, the website of the Energy Conservation Information Centre of the National Development and Reform Commission.

Exhaust gas emissions in the city increased by 72.7 per cent from 1999 to 2004, while discharges of industrial wastewater climbed to 31 per cent in Jiangsu Province during that period.

"The Yangtze River Delta is one of the most seriously polluted areas in the country," said an official surnamed Wu, of the environmental protection department of the Shanghai Oceanic Administration (SOA).

According to the 2005 Shanghai Oceanic Environment Report released by the SOA, the extent of polluted water in Shanghai and its neighbouring sea areas has continuously expanded over the past year, with more than 40 per cent of its nearby ocean waters (9,490 square kilometres) failing to reach the standard for clean sea water set by Chinese environmental authorities.

"About 90 per cent of sea pollutants come from the many factories in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River. The Shanghai government's efforts cannot improve the entire situation," Wu said,

"I think there are always contradictions between economic development and environmental protection. The developed cities have paid more attention to reducing environmental damage than the developing cities, while pollution in the developed cities is much more serious than the developing ones," he added.

Water sources have been severely polluted in the Yangtze River Delta region due to growing industrial pollution. It is hard to find good quality drinkable water directly from a river, with some water sources being contaminated by toxins.

Shanghai's water sources have been changed several times since 1949 in order to avoid pollution. They were shifted from the middle and lower reaches of the Huangpu River to the upper reaches of the Linjiang River in 1987. After just a decade they were moved further to the Songpu Bridge area.

Recently the Shanghai Water Supply Administrative Bureau has started to take about 20 per cent of the city's water directly from the Yangtze River.

"The worsening industrial pollution is related to a loosening of law enforcement. That's because punishment is sometimes negotiable in this country," said Gao Naiyun, professor at the College of Environmental Science and Engineering of the Shanghai Tongji University.

"Some factories that have damaged the environment deserve to be fined, but they are also models for paying high taxes among local businesses," she noted.

Therefore, they are supported by local governments. What's more some companies with water purification equipment rarely use it - except when an investigation is being undertaken.

"Or they use it in the daytime and switch it off at night, and then directly discharge waste in order to save costs," the professor said.

She claimed many township enterprises focus narrowly on increasing their profits, but have no sense - or even technology - to protect the environment.

Relevant government departments should tighten controls to prevent the situation from getting worse, she suggested.

(China Daily 05/29/2006 page8)