"When I was a child, the Sushui River was clean and fresh," he said. "There were many fish in it. The river carries a lot of sweet memories for us boys."

But today, Li, a farmer in his mid 30s, has trouble finding clean water near the banks of the Sushui.

"In the past, I dug 60 metres to get clean drinking water," said Li, who lives in Yangma Village of Yongji County. "But now, as you see, my well is 180 metres deep."

Today the Sushui is black and smelly. It looks more like a sewage ditch than a river.

Samples show the water quality is even worse than Grade V the lowest level in the five-grade water quality system.

And the Sushui is not unique among the 26 rivers in Shanxi, China's major coal producing base, nearly 81 per cent were rated Grade V or lower last year.

The province has the worst water in China, and it's getting even worse.

The dire situation is what brought members of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC) to Shanxi for an eight-day examination tour last month.

They were in the province to ensure the Law on the Prevention of Environmental Pollution from Solid Waste and the Law on the Prevention and Control of Water Pollution were being properly implemented.

"Environmental problems have become a restraint on Shanxi's economic and social development," said Sheng Huaren, vice-chairman of the NPC Standing Committee.

The condition of the Sushui River began to deteriorate in the 1980s, when huge amounts of chemicals from print works, dye factories and other industries began pouring into it.

Today 13 million cubic metres of wastewater is injected into the river every year and no parts of the 197-kilometre river are clean.

Air pollution in Shanxi is also serious.

According to statistics from the State Environmental Protection Administration, the country's 10 worst polluted cities are all in Shanxi. Emissions of sulphur dioxide (SO2) in the province reached 1.5 million tons last year, double the goal the provincial government had set.

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