Mixed blessings

Zhang Qiyuan is reluctant to buy a bottle of pesticide for 19 yuan - almost half of his daily wages. But he has to, even in the freezing winter.

The 66-year-old's house is opposite a rubbish dump, a breeding ground for flies and mosquitoes.

But this is not what the local environment was like eight years ago, before the Three Gorges Dam, world's biggest hydroelectric project, flooded the lower-lying parts of Yinxingtuo village, 20 minutes drive upstream of the dam, where Zhang and his 63-year-old wife live.

The Zhangs were among more than 1.2 million people moved in 19 counties and cities, and 153 towns to make way for the dam. The waters will rise to 175 meters when the project is finished.

More than two-thirds of the residents of Yinxingtuo have already been resettled to government-built housing on higher ground.

Resettlement was a shock to them. "I couldn't get used to it," says Zhang's wife Cui Ruishan. "The strong smell drives me crazy."

Local people used to dump rubbish near their houses. As small amounts of household refuse could be easily absorbed into the soil, the garbage problem was not prominent.

But since their resettlement, the centralization of the residential area also resulted in the centralization of the garbage dump, emanating foul smells all day long.

Unlike urban areas, household garbage is not usually collected and treated in rural China due to local governments' limited funds.

Yinxingtuo village, belongs to Zigui county, a poverty-stricken county in central China's Hubei province with a per-capita GDP of 3,400 yuan in 2007.

"Because Zigui is a poverty-stricken county with limited budget, and people there are so poor that they are reluctant to pay the bill for refuse collection and treatment. As a result, it is very difficult to solve the problem," says Hao Guanghua, deputy-director of the county's environment protection bureau.

At present, Zigui has just one garbage treatment station, in the county town, dealing with trash from the immediate vicinity.

Hao says that the cost of transporting garbage from across Zigui to the county town would be too expensive, noting that the earthest village from the county town is four hours' journey by truck.

Managing people who have lost their homes to the dam has in many ways proved a bigger challenge than the dam itself. The government has allocated an estimated $10 billion to the task.

But even this has proved too little to deal with this mammoth task. Hao explains that the money was mainly spent during the early stages of relocation.

But this situation is set to change following the Ministry of Environmental Protection's recent announcement that the central government will allocate 500 million yuan to improve the environment in about 700 villages this year.

Collecting household garbage from rural households will be included in the fiscal package.

Although relocated residents have faced some problems, officials argue the dam project will boost development in the Three Gorges, which has lagged behind modernization in coastal areas.

Zhang Shigang appreciates the new life he has enjoyed since moving into the new residential area.

He used to earn a few thousand yuan per year by planting oranges, but grasped the opportunity to open a restaurant serving tourists.

Zhang, 34, is more satisfied living in the new environment earning 10 times more than before.

And the new roads in the area bring more customers to his eatery, and will make it much easier for his daughter to travel to middle school in the county town in two years' time.

"It took one hour to go to the school in the town before the road was built, but now my daughter can go to school by bus in just 15 minutes," he says.

Before the road was built, a one-hour journey from the village to the city of Yichang used to take 20 hours by foot, says Cui Bangzhong, secretary of the village's Party committee.

But improved living standards always come at a price. Improved transport links have boosted the local service sector, providing more job opportunities for the under-40s, but the shrinking amount of arable land has opened a can of worms for older villagers.

"I was able to feed five family members by farming, but now I lost all the arable land and get just 50 yuan compensation a month," says Cui Ruishan. "I am not happy with the life now. Now we cannot even often afford pork."

For many farmers, the immediate concern is the land beneath their feet. Even Zhang Shigang feels the same way. "Sometimes I don't have a sense of security, " he says. "Although I earn a decent wage now, it's not stable, who know what will happen tomorrow. But as long as I work on the land, I know I won't starve."

(China Daily 12/01/2008 page5)