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China’s vice-minister of health has reiterated the importance of thoroughly cleaning and decontaminating the bottom of the future Three Gorges reservoir to protect water quality and avert the spread of disease epidemics.

More attention must be paid to the cleanup and to the technical training of those involved in it, Ma Xiaowei told officials attending a conference on the issue convened by China’s State Council. His remarks were reported May 15 by the Three Gorges Project Daily (Sanxia gongcheng bao).

Mr. Ma said that cleaning up the reservoir bed has profound public-health implications and should be seen as an extremely important component of the Three Gorges project. And he highlighted the national significance of the task, saying the country’s future was directly linked to the protection of the Yangtze River and wise use of its water resources.

Illness caused by the reservoirs of large dams is hardly a new phenomenon at home or abroad, Mr. Ma noted. He warned that the sudden, high-density concentration of people in the reservoir area could promote the spread of epidemics in the Three Gorges region, which historically has been disease-prone anyway.

The reservoir is due to be filled to the 135-metre level in June next year, and will eventually stretch for more than 600 kilometres upstream when the dam is fully operational in 2009.

Mr. Ma said the Ministry of Health issued "technical regulations" governing the cleanup after surveying the reservoir bed. The survey identified two main types of pollution, he said. There are 149,500 "ordinary" pollution sites, such as manure pits, public toilets, livestock sheds, and graves, with a total area of 3.55 million square metres (equivalent to 355 hectares), that need to be cleaned up. In addition, 3,264 "infective" pollution sites, such as hospitals, clinics, slaughterhouses and veterinary stations, covering a total area of 1.38 million square metres (138 hectares), require attention. The cleanup must also include killing the mice and rats that infest 22 million square metres (2,200 hectares) of land, he said.

Without a comprehensive cleanup, Mr. Ma told the April 27 conference, it will be impossible to obtain benefits from the dam, improve the environment in the reservoir area, or provide a safe environment for the development of regions both upstream and downstream of the dam.