The Three Gorges hydro power project on China’s Yangtze River is ready to store record amount of water after the summer flood season. The reservoir, situated in Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province is ready to hold water to the level of 156 meters from preset 135 meters, which has been maintained since the reservoir began to store water in June 2003. Officials with the State Council Three Gorges Project Construction Committee said the quality of the clean-up work at the reservoir site has met the state objective and requirements. By the end of June, workers had demolished buildings with a total floor space of 9.2 million square metres at the area to be submerged, and had cleared up 133,356 sources of pollution along with 1.5 million tonnes of solid waste. China has also spent $1.3 million annually since 2003 to prevent upstream garbage floating into the mammoth dam to ensure safe operation of the world’s largest water control project. The collection of floating garages in the reservoir was carried out in February this year. The dam project involves two cities, Yichang City in Hubei Province and Chongqing Municipality in western China. Launched in 1993, the Three Gorges dam project, which includes the dam and 26 generators on both banks of the Yangtze River, is scheduled to be completed in 2009 and by then it is expected to generate 84.7 billion kwh of electricity annually and to help contain floods. The Three Gorges project is estimated to cost 180 billion yuan (approximately $21.7 billion).