Local govt's empty promises expose a state of affairs that has to be cleaned up
RESPONDING TO COMPLAINTS by local residents, an inspection team of the State Council, China's Cabinet, found large amounts of household rubbish had been dumped in the Mazhong River in Babao town of Kaiyuan city, Northeast China's Liaoning province. They also discovered a factory making plastic products and a local papermaking industrial park was discharging waste water into the river. China Youth Daily comments:
Ironically, the industrial waste water flows through a sewage treatment works built specifically for local industries in 2015. But this has obviously not functioned for a long time.
The Mazhong River is a branch of Liaohe River, the seventh longest river in China, and more than 30 million people live in the drainage basin of the Liaohe River. The water pollution has already caused a shortage of drinking water downstream.
