Rural Water Pollution Becomes a Stubborn Problem: Cleaning Up Water Reaches the Last Mile
In recent years, the rural water environment situation has been severe. Livestock and poultry farming, household waste and other sources have become important sources of water pollution, arousing widespread social concern. In many places, preventing and controlling rural water pollution is both an important matter and a difficult one. This year the State Council issued the "Water Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan," which emphatically proposed advancing the prevention and control of pollution from agriculture and rural areas and preventing and controlling pollution from livestock and poultry farming. Where exactly is the difficulty in preventing and controlling rural water pollution, and are there effective solutions? A reporter followed the National People's Congress Environment and Resources Protection Committee's "China Environmental Century Tour" interview team into Sichuan for on-the-ground interviews.
Rural Water Pollution Becomes a Stubborn Problem
In Banqiao Village, Danleng County, Meishan City, Sichuan Province, almost every household raises pigs. Villager Liu Huaiyu raises about 200 head, which is only enough to count as medium scale locally. For her, handling pig manure is a long-standing headache. "The farm produces about four buckets of manure every day. In the past, part of the pig manure was used to fertilize our own orchard, but there was still a large amount of manure left with nowhere to go. Everyone just discharged it arbitrarily into ditches, rivers and lakes, and the nearby waters stank." Liu Huaiyu said.
Livestock and poultry pollution not only fouls water bodies and damages the environment, but also leaves nearby residents suffering greatly. Song Chengquan, a farmer in Danleng Town, Danleng County, told the Economic Daily reporter that several years ago he was ambitious about running a fish pond and had invested 150,000 yuan, but because one household upstream raised 3 pigs and did not properly handle livestock and poultry manure and other issues, the water of the entire fish pond was polluted. Before he had seen any profit, he lost his capital and suffered enormous losses.
In recent years, as livestock and poultry farming volumes in some areas have increased without order, waste emissions have far exceeded the absorption capacity of water bodies. The latest pollution source census data released by the Ministry of Environmental Protection show that China's livestock and poultry farming industry has chemical oxygen demand and ammonia nitrogen emissions reaching 11.48 million tons and 650,000 tons respectively, accounting for 45% and 25% of the national total emissions, and 3.23 times and 2.3 times the emissions from industrial sources respectively. In 24 provinces nationwide, the chemical oxygen demand and ammonia nitrogen emissions of livestock and poultry farms and specialized farming households account for more than 90% of local agricultural source emissions.
In addition, substances such as antibiotics, hormones, copper, iron, chromium and zinc in livestock and poultry feed additives, as manure is returned to fields, cause pollution of soil and groundwater environments, indirectly causing declines in the quality of grain, vegetables and other agricultural products, and harming people's health. Relevant research shows that a pig farm with an annual slaughter volume of 100,000 head can have a pollution radius of up to 5 kilometers.
Sichuan is both an important water conservation area and major catchment area for the Yangtze River and Yellow River, and also a major agricultural province and major farming province. Livestock and poultry farming, rural domestic pollution and non-point source pollution are heavy, while the construction of urban sewage treatment and supporting facilities, especially township sewage treatment facilities, is incomplete and operates unstably, resulting in prominent total phosphorus pollution in the river basin. Exceeding the total phosphorus standard has become a prominent problem in Sichuan Province's water environment and is one of the main directions for comprehensive water environment improvement in Sichuan Province in the future.
Treating rural water pollution is not an easy task. In the past, for rural water pollution prevention and control in Sichuan, localities thought of many methods and invested enormous fiscal funds, yet achieved little effect, because the cost of water pollution treatment was too high while fiscal funds were limited. In many rural areas, water treatment became a heavy burden for local governments.
"In addition, rural water treatment must also face the question of who will carry it out. There are many pollution sources, treatment forces are thin, and treatment responsibility has fallen on the government. The government has no choice but to take full responsibility for water pollution prevention and control, often falling into the awkward position of being unable to do what it wants, and cannot achieve normalization of water pollution treatment." said Gu Weifen, deputy director of the Office of the Danleng County Urban and Rural Environment Comprehensive Improvement Command.
For some rural areas, understanding of water pollution prevention and control is insufficient, effective regulatory measures are lacking, and a water treatment system and work pattern in which county, township and village Party and government bodies jointly manage it has not been formed. Rural water pollution prevention and control efforts are insufficient, and even follow a pattern of "working for three days and resting for two," further indulging farmers' arbitrary discharge of livestock and poultry pollution. Therefore, rural water treatment has become a long-unbroken, years-old stubborn problem.
Bringing in Social Forces to Treat Water
Now, in Danleng County, Meishan City, every village has professional water treatment teams. Some are specifically responsible for waste treatment, and some help solve the difficult problem of livestock and poultry pollution. Song Chengquan is the head of one such water treatment team.
Ever since his fish pond was polluted by livestock and poultry, Song Chengquan has been "locked in battle" with water pollution. "Water pollution treatment is too important!" Song Chengquan said. He specifically went to participate in the bidding for the town's manure pumping and spreading machine service team and won out among more than a dozen competitors, establishing a professional service team specifically handling pollutants from livestock and poultry farms.
"Danleng recruits professional service teams responsible for the transport of dry manure and excess biogas slurry. Townships use bidding to form township manure pumping and spreading machine service teams. The county finance department gives each service team a subsidy of 100,000 yuan per year. The winning manure pumping and spreading machine service team signs a contracting agreement with the township and is responsible for collecting and transporting dry manure and excess biogas slurry in its township, completely eliminating livestock and poultry farming pollution." said Song Shili, director of the Danleng County Environmental Protection Bureau.
In the practice of water treatment, Sichuan Province gradually realized that relying solely on government forces cannot supervise and stop the discharge of agricultural pollution. Bringing in market-based professional teams and attracting more social forces to participate in water treatment has become a new approach to rural water treatment in Sichuan.
Song Chengquan's service team not only has uniforms, but also carries equipment such as generators and pipes on its vehicles. Team members handle operations skillfully and look quite professional. They go door to door to collect biogas slurry. Farmers pay 3 yuan per cubic meter of biogas slurry, and growers pay 30 yuan per cubic meter for fertilizing fields. Through market-based operation, livestock manure that was originally regarded as a pollution source achieves a value of 33 yuan in the process of being pumped and discharged. The service team can haul 9 to 11 loads a day, earning about 800 yuan.
"Since professional treatment began, pollution in rural ditches, ponds, rivers and canals has been greatly reduced, and the formerly stinking rivers have become clear." Song Chengquan said. The team he leads has 3 people and is responsible for 7 villages. Every day at dawn, they collect livestock and poultry manure from farmers and then pour it into fields for growers who need it. This both reduces ditch pollution and allows growers to use farmyard manure at low cost.
Sichuan Province uses the same approach to handle rural household waste. In Danleng County, after farmers conduct preliminary sorting of waste, contractors carry out secondary sorting and treatment. "In this way, two rounds of waste recovery can reduce volume by 80%. Moreover, operating costs are greatly reduced. One-time facility investment is saved by 73%, annual operating expenses are saved by 88%, yet the treatment effect is not compromised at all." said Gu Weifen, deputy director of the Office of the Danleng County Urban and Rural Environment Comprehensive Improvement Command.
"Adapt to local conditions, village self-governance, market operation. Relying on market forces and with professional teams, the government has escaped the water treatment dilemma, the pressure of funding input has been reduced, rural areas have achieved normalized cleaning, and water environment treatment has been effectively improved, achieving a win-win for ecology and the economy." Gu Weifen said.
Regulatory "Tentacles" Leave No Blind Spots
Zhou Chaoyi is the young female mayor of Xinminchang Town. Beyond that, she has another identity: the town's first responsible person for environmental protection. Once a water quality safety accident or water pollution problem of any size occurs within her jurisdiction, she, as the head of the town, is the first to be held accountable. "The responsibility on my shoulders is heavier now, and I feel especially great pressure. Water environment monitoring work is now carried out very tightly, and I do not dare be negligent in the slightest." Zhou Chaoyi said.
In the government office building of Xinminchang Town, an environmental protection office is specifically established for environmental protection work, and the environmental violation reporting telephone number is prominently posted at the office door. As the first responsible person for environmental protection, Zhou Chaoyi has environmental protection liaison officers in all seven villages and one community under her jurisdiction. This inspection team divides responsibility areas according to the village territorial principle, clarifies responsibilities, and conducts daily inspections of drinking water sources, industrial pollution sources, domestic pollution sources and rural non-point source pollution in its jurisdiction. The town water source inspection office is responsible for organizing and carrying out assessment work and reports the situation monthly.
"The water quality here is very good. In the past, ordinary people washed clothes and vegetables in the river, which polluted the water body. Now, to protect water quality safety, protective nets have been put up, polluting water sources is prohibited, and cross-section improvement is implemented. There can be no waste piled in the river channel, no silt accumulated on the riverbed, and no debris floating on the river surface. When inspectors find similar pollution problems, they also stop them promptly." Zhou Chaoyi said. Since the establishment of town-level environmental protection institutions and village-community protection liaison officers, the "tentacles" of environmental monitoring have extended to every piece of land, and Xinminchang Town has formed a regulatory network system that reaches horizontally to the edges and vertically to the bottom, with full coverage.
Like Xinminchang Town, all 317 townships and subdistricts in Chengdu have established environmental protection institutions, extending to villages and communities. Chengdu became the first sub-provincial city in the country to achieve standardized, systematic and full-coverage environmental protection management across its entire area, achieving the "taking root" of environmental protection work at the grassroots level. Since 2011, Chengdu has selected and appointed 1,146 specially invited environmental protection supervisors from provincial and municipal people's congress deputies, CPPCC members and citizens enthusiastic about environmental protection, giving play to the role of social supervision. It is precisely this kind of institutional innovation that has opened up the last mile for water environment supervision to take effect.
"Supervision is not just doing superficial work. In order to make rural water pollution treatment truly effective, Sichuan Province requires local governments at all levels to include water environment quality targets in the scope of target assessment and adopt strong measures to advance them. Here, inadequate water pollution prevention and control is punished." Zhou Chaoyi said.
It is understood that Chengdu, Sichuan has implemented a cross-section deduction system since 2012. A total of 34 assessment cross-sections have been set up on major river channels, and districts (cities) and counties with water quality exceeding standards have funds deducted according to rules. By 2014, a cumulative total of 70.196 million yuan had been deducted, specifically for water environment treatment work.
A pollution treatment system in which each party fulfills its own responsibilities means rural water pollution prevention and control is no longer "armchair strategy," but is truly carried out as an important routine task at the grassroots level. Through the coordination and dispatch of administrative forces at all levels, the vast rural areas of Sichuan have gradually restored a good ecological environment with clear rivers, clean banks and fish swimming.
"At present, apart from Chengdu, where township environmental protection offices have all been established, and Mianyang City, which has started establishing township environmental protection offices, the construction of township environmental protection institutions in other places has not yet started. The construction of township environmental protection institutions in Sichuan has just begun. The next step will be to continue promoting it and further strengthen township environmental supervision forces." said He Luzhang, deputy secretary-general of the Sichuan Provincial Government.