People’s Daily
September 20, 2006

‘To pollute the rivers just took a few years or a few days, but to turn the river clean will take more than a decade to complete,’ a SEPA official said.

After ten years of treatment and billions of dollars being spent, the water in the Huaihe River area is still dead black. Why did the goal of treating water pollution fail? “Because it’s not that easy, people underestimated the mounting task of turning the black water clear and set an unpractical goal in the short term.” said Jia Feng, vice director of the Center for Environmental Education and Communication of the State Environmental Protection Administration of China. “To pollute the rivers just took a few years or a few days, but to turn the river clean will take more than a decade to complete.” Jia Feng said during an interview with me at Stockholm Water Week.