China Daily

September 19, 2000

China Daily reported that Chinese officials have promised the Three Gorges dam project will be environmentally friendly and will not destroy ecological systems in the Yangtze river area.

Responding to fears that the project will harm the environment along the world’s third longest river, Lu Youmei, general manager of the Three Gorges Corporation, said the dam’s reservoir “will never be turned into a huge cesspool as some foreigners have warned.” Addressing a Three Gorges project workshop in Beijing last month, Lu Youmei, along with other project officials, admitted that there are some disadvantages in the construction design for the environment but, Mr. Lu added, “China, is able to mitigate the negative effects they may have.” He said the government had worked out rules to ensure sewage was treated before it entered the Yangtze and to prohibit the build-up of rubbish along the river’s banks. In addition to closing down hundreds of polluting enterprises and factories along the river, the government spent US$87-million last year on a forest belt on the Yangtze’s upper reaches in an effort to conserve soil and improve water quality.