Li Qian
Global Times
March 17, 2010

Beijing residents can now expect clearer lakes and rivers this summer, as the city’s park managers have started a project to purify the water in parks.

The purification project was launched Tuesday at the Beijing Zoo for major water bodies in the city, and will be finished by August.

The project is expected to improve the clarity of the water and also help build a self-purification system for the lakes, in particular, effectively preventing water blooms, which occur every year in Beijing, though during most times in very limited areas.

The lake in the Beijing Zoo will be specially cleaned, as garbage and animal droppings in the zoo have greatly polluted the water, which poses a safety threat to the animals. A water-cleaning system is being installed in the zoo, which will be able to treat 20,000 cubic meters of water every day.

A similar system will be installed at the Taoranting Park, which has been plagued by water blooms in recent years, which is caused by excessive amounts of algae.

In other water purification methods, the authorities will also grow 20,000 square meters of water plants on the surface of lakes and other bodies of water. Water reoxygenation generators have been installed in parks including the Summer Palace and Beihai Park.

The new project comes at a time when Beijing is facing a grave situation in water protection. The Beijing Municipal Administration Center of Parks, in charge of the project, published a report Tuesday, saying they had recorded deteriorating water quality in the city’s parks in recent years due to decreasing water levels.

In 2007, the Beijing Water Authority initiated a “water quality surveillance information network,” which included inspectors checking the water in all major parks weekly. More than half of the 17 major lakes in the urban area were found to have the fourth dirtiest water rating in a system with the dirtiest being fifth.