The Three Gorges reservoir is ready to store water to the 156-metre mark, Xinhua reports. The raising of the reservoir is expected to occur this month.

‘We’ve been looking forward to this report for a long time,’ says environmental journalist Wang Yongchen. ‘Obviously it shows that the Chinese government is making this problem a priority. Otherwise they wouldn’t have published such a big figure of loss.’

China has announced the first results of a long-term project to quantify the impact of growing pollution on its economy, estimating that environmental damage cost the equivalent of 3 per cent of economic output in 2004.

‘Many journalists, international and national, wrote reports and questioned the Three Gorges project. But once it was completed they stopped. I know the population is still suffering from it.’ — filmmaker Jia Zhangke

Forty-three tons of rat poison have been laid to clear the Three Gorges reservoir area of rodents before water levels are raised to 156 meters later this month.

Tourist travelling on the Yangtze River to admire the Three Gorges project will have to transfer to buses to get around the dam for the next year while construction work is under way on the shiplock, Xinhua reports.

China’s State Council, or cabinet, has authorized the Three Gorges power plant to raise the water level of the reservoir to 156 metres after this year’s flood season.

Navigation delays are set to begin Sept. 15 at the Three Gorges dam, as construction work on the shiplock will reduce traffic to single file and significantly curtail the volume of freight that can pass through the dam in the next year.

Traffic at the Three Gorges dam shiplock slowed drastically Friday as year-long construction work began. Traffic can now move in only one direction, alternating every 24 hours.

HRIC has learned that intervention by the German media has resulted in injured Three Gorges activist Fu Xiancai gaining admittance to one of China’s best rehabilitation hospitals. Meanwhile, local officials are harassing his friends and family.

The water level in the Three Gorges reservoir will rise from the current 135 metres to 148 metres by Oct. 1 and then to 156 metres by mid-October after a break of two days so engineers can monitor the effects on the dam, Xinhua reports.