Solving the dilemma of rural water pollution control requires establishing a sustainable treatment mechanism
In recent years, with the gradual migration of China's rural population, a large number of rural residents have moved to market towns and new villages. Compared with cities, rural sewage treatment facilities are severely lagging behind, and the water pollution problem at rural concentrated residential areas has become increasingly prominent.
The State Council recently issued the "Water Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan," which requires accelerating comprehensive rural environmental improvement, implementing unified planning, construction and management of rural sewage treatment, and promoting contiguous rural environmental governance.
Liaowang Think Tank recently learned in some rural areas of Chongqing, Jiangxi and other places that some localities are gradually advancing rural water pollution control, building small and medium-sized sewage treatment facilities tailored to local conditions in rural areas. However, during its research, Liaowang Think Tank found that many difficulties, including insufficient professional expertise of grassroots governments in operating sewage treatment facilities, uneven cost-sharing for management and maintenance, ineffective promotion of new technologies, and inadequate environmental supervision, are constraining the effectiveness of rural water pollution control. A sustainable governance system for rural sewage urgently needs to be improved.
Multiple Localities Advance Rural Water Pollution Control
Yunyang County in Chongqing is located in the hinterland of the Three Gorges Reservoir area. The residential area of Yongli Village in Bayang Town of the county has more than 1,300 villagers. At the sewage treatment station in this residential area, Liaowang Think Tank saw that after sewage is collected and undergoes aeration treatment and wetland filtration, the water quality is noticeably improved, with a daily treatment capacity of 50 tons.
Villager Fan Shilun told Liaowang Think Tank that previously sewage was discharged directly into the creek behind the residential area, the creek water was black and smelly, and fish and shrimp had disappeared. "Last year, a sewage treatment station was built here, with pipeline networks connecting every household. Now the creek water has started to become clear, and crabs have appeared again."
Li Jingchuan, deputy director of the Yunyang County Environmental Protection Bureau, introduced that rural water pollution sources are mainly domestic sewage and livestock and poultry farming. The county has vigorously implemented contiguous rural environmental improvement, investing 53.74 million yuan to build waste and sewage treatment facilities in 34 administrative villages and communities, implementing total pollution reduction for large-scale farms, and closing or relocating farms in prohibited zones. More than 70% of farm pollution has been brought under control, and a total of 273 municipal and county-level ecological villages have been established.
At the small sewage treatment plant in Chitian Town, Fengxin County, Yichun City, Jiangxi Province, a giant green oval tank can treat more than 300 tons of domestic sewage generated by nearly 8,000 people in the market town each day. This FMBR facultative membrane treatment technology achieves simultaneous treatment of sewage and organic excess sludge.
Shuai Yimei, party secretary of Luotang Village in the town, said that previously the sewage from the market town was discharged directly into the fields. The sewage mixed with excrement, sludge and garbage caused severe eutrophication of more than 120 mu of paddy fields in the village, making it impossible to grow crops, and villagers petitioned authorities multiple times over this. Now, the treated clean water can irrigate more than 300 mu of paddy fields in the village.
In recent years, many provinces and municipalities have implemented contiguous rural environmental improvement, with water pollution control as a key component. In 2008, Chongqing launched a national pilot for urban-rural coordinated environmental protection and a demonstration for contiguous rural environmental improvement. Starting in 2013, Chongqing listed contiguous rural environmental improvement as a key livelihood project, planning to complete contiguous improvement of 2,000 villages by 2017, implementing "three treatments and one protection" focusing on rural domestic sewage, garbage, livestock and poultry farming pollution control, and rural drinking water source protection.
Based on the population of market towns and residential areas, sewage treatment facilities are built tailored to local conditions. In areas with a daily treatment capacity of more than 100 tons and located in environmentally sensitive areas or areas where tap water fees are collected, small sewage treatment stations are built; where the daily treatment scale is less than 50 tons, unpowered small constructed wetlands are built. The domestic sewage treatment rate in villages implementing this project reaches 60%.
To adapt to the trend of rural water pollution concentrating in towns and townships, Jiangxi also plans to invest 200 million yuan, following the principle of "township as the main body, market-oriented operation, departmental guidance, and fiscal subsidies," to comprehensively advance the construction of domestic sewage treatment facilities in the town areas of the top 100 central towns in 2015, achieving town-village coordinated governance of rural water pollution problems. The plan is to achieve an 80% sewage collection rate in town areas by 2017, with domestic sewage in town areas basically effectively treated.
Although many localities have strengthened their efforts in rural water pollution control, the coverage of rural environmental protection facilities is very limited. Professor Xie Deti, dean of the College of Resources and Environment at Southwest University, introduced that China's rural sewage has for thousands of years mostly been "self-produced and self-consumed," collected through self-built septic tanks and toilets, and these wastes ultimately became farmland fertilizer and were reused. However, at present, a large number of rural residents are migrating to market towns and no longer engage in agricultural activities, while most emerging market towns have not built sewage treatment facilities.
Of the 120 top 100 central towns established in Jiangxi, only more than 30 have built sewage treatment facilities. According to monitoring by Jiangxi hydrological departments over the past decade, the overall water quality of Poyang Lake during the dry season has declined from Class I to III in the last century to Class III to IV now, with Class V water quality appearing in some areas. The main pollutants are total nitrogen and total phosphorus. Besides agricultural non-point source pollution, rural domestic sewage is the main "contributor."
Operational Dilemmas of Sewage Treatment Facilities
The State Council recently issued the "Water Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan," which explicitly states the need to accelerate comprehensive rural environmental improvement. It calls for deepening the "reward for treatment" policy, implementing rural cleaning projects, carrying out river dredging, and promoting contiguous rural environmental improvement. By 2020, an additional 130,000 incorporated villages will have completed comprehensive environmental improvement.
Experts say the "Water Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan" will promote the improvement of rural environmental protection facilities, and in the coming years, the number of rural water treatment equipment will grow rapidly. However, Liaowang Think Tank's interviews found that normalized operation of existing rural sewage treatment facilities faces numerous difficulties. "Easy to build, hard to use" has become a commonly reported problem at the grassroots level.
First, grassroots governments lack professional technical support for operating environmental protection facilities. Liaowang Think Tank learned that except for a few larger-scale centralized sewage treatment facilities operated and managed by professional companies, most rural sewage treatment facilities are handed over to local township governments for operation and management after completion.
At the residential area of Wanban Village, Baishi Town, Zhongxian County, Chongqing, a small constructed wetland filters domestic sewage from the residential area before discharge. "The operation of sewage facilities is fairly professional. Plants in small constructed wetlands need to be harvested regularly and replaced after a few years. Powered sewage treatment stations also require professional technicians. Township-level governments lack technical support." said Wang Tieniu, deputy mayor of Baishi Town, Zhongxian County.
Second, management and maintenance costs are mainly borne at the grassroots level, and funding lacks effective guarantees. Tang Zhiping, mayor of Bajing Town, Gao'an City, Jiangxi Province, told Liaowang Think Tank that most of the management and operation costs of sewage treatment facilities need to be resolved by grassroots governments themselves, which is a relatively heavy fiscal burden for rural areas with lower levels of economic development.
Liaowang Think Tank learned from the Chongqing Environmental Protection Bureau that except for a few districts with better financial resources that include rural environmental protection facility operations in their fiscal budgets, most districts and counties adopt a combination of moderate fiscal subsidies, collecting partial sewage and garbage treatment fees from villagers, and the remainder raised by townships themselves. According to a grassroots official in Yunyang County, a sewage treatment station requires at least 50,000 yuan per year in costs including labor, electricity, and pipeline network maintenance.
Yunyang County has about 150 rural environmental improvement projects including sewage treatment. The county subsidizes each project with 5,000 to 10,000 yuan, putting great pressure on township operating funds. Many rural market towns and residential areas do not use tap water, making it very difficult to separately collect sewage treatment fees from villagers.
Wan Dan, village director of Yongli Village in Yunyang County, said that sewage treatment fees are basically impossible to collect, and garbage treatment fees are collected at 5 yuan per household, amounting to only a few hundred yuan a month. Wu Zongli, deputy mayor of Maguan Town, Zhongxian County, introduced that the town can collect about 100,000 yuan a year in sanitation fees including garbage and sewage, with a funding gap of more than 400,000 yuan.
Third, promoting new sewage treatment technologies is difficult. Gong Yong, director of the Science and Technology Standards Division of the Jiangxi Provincial Environmental Protection Department, said that in earlier years, various localities promoted traditional sewage treatment technologies such as oxidation ponds and oxidation ditches. Although the initial equipment investment was relatively small, problems such as consuming money and effort for maintenance and causing secondary pollution gradually emerged later. Technologies newly developed in recent years have lower comprehensive operating costs and good treatment results, but the equipment investment is relatively high, making them not easy to promote.
The FMBR facultative membrane treatment technology independently developed by Jiangxi Jindalai Environmental Protection Co., Ltd. has obtained patents in multiple countries and has been used for sewage treatment in peacekeeping force camps. Company head Tao Kun pointed out that there are quite a few environmental protection enterprises engaged in water environment treatment, but not many possess core technologies. Some enterprises with inadequate technologies are keen on "staking out territory" in the market through low-price competition, often neglecting after-sales service.
During its research, Liaowang Think Tank found that most rural sewage treatment facilities have not installed online monitoring equipment due to cost reasons. Combined with their wide distribution and long distances, environmental protection departments also find it difficult to conduct normalized monitoring. The sewage treated by some facilities still fails to meet standards.
The residential areas of Huayuan Village in Shuanglu Town and Gujiadian Village in Mingshan Subdistrict, Fengdu County, Chongqing, both have small unpowered constructed wetlands. Liaowang Think Tank saw that due to poor plant growth in these two constructed wetlands, the discharged water was still turbid and black. Li Yongming, section chief of the Comprehensive Division of the Fengdu County Environmental Protection Bureau, said that only after the plants grow well can the sewage undergo better filtration to meet comprehensive discharge standards.
Xie Deti said that if rural water pollution treatment facilities are not properly managed and maintained, nutrients increase, and the discharged water contains more pollutants. At present, some rural garbage and sewage treatment facilities have already fallen into a state of no one managing or maintaining them due to insufficient funds and poor operating mechanisms. Many facilities have become mere decorations and sources of secondary pollution.
Establishing a Sustainable Treatment Mechanism
Some grassroots officials worry that with the advancement of contiguous rural environmental improvement, there will be more and more pollution control projects, and townships may find it difficult to guarantee operating funds. Some environmental protection projects, lacking land use quotas and facing long approval procedures for obtaining land use quotas, have no choice but to rent farmers' land for construction, creating difficulties in project site selection. There are also occasional incidents where some land-lost farmers obstruct project construction due to demands for higher compensation.
Grassroots environmental protection personnel said that previously townships were very enthusiastic about building rural environmental protection facilities, but now some townships are unwilling to build them either.
Industry insiders interviewed believe that rural sewage treatment should advance facility construction steadily in phases and batches. First, construction and operation and maintenance costs must be guaranteed, and a reasonable sewage treatment fee collection mechanism should be gradually explored. Professor Zhu Lehui of the School of Environmental and Chemical Engineering at Nanchang University believes that if the construction and operation and maintenance cost problems are not solved, facilities may sit idle after being built, becoming "sun-basking" projects.
He suggested that on one hand, provincial-level fiscal support should be increased, with subsidies based on treatment effectiveness; on the other hand, efforts should be actively made to explore establishing a collection mechanism for township domestic sewage treatment fees, solving the funding source problem through multiple channels.
Second, the responsible entities for construction and management and maintenance should be clearly defined, enhancing the participation of farmers and village collectives. It should be clearly established that central towns serve as the responsible entities for the construction and operation of sewage treatment facilities, encouraging areas with the necessary conditions to adopt models of professional company operation and management and government purchase of services, gradually achieving "professional services, market-oriented operations, and property-style management."
Zhou Ning, head of Chongqing Leshan Environmental Protection Technology Co., Ltd., which specializes in sewage treatment, believes that the government should further open up the sewage treatment market, hiring third-party governance through service procurement to improve the efficiency of rural water pollution prevention and control. Local environmental protection, construction and other departments should play roles in supervision, guidance and standardization.
Dr. Liu Pingyang of the Department of Environmental Science and Engineering at Fudan University believes that to break the long-standing dilemma of rural domestic sewage management and operation, it is also necessary to fully mobilize the enthusiasm of farmers and village collective organizations as both polluters and beneficiaries of sewage treatment, truly treating domestic sewage treatment as a matter closely related to their own interests.
In addition, it is necessary to explore sewage treatment models suitable for rural areas, with emphasis on promoting environmentally friendly and "foolproof" treatment technologies for management and maintenance.
Song Qianwu, a researcher at the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, believes that the methods used to solve urban sewage collection and treatment problems cannot simply be applied to solve sewage problems in rural areas and small towns. Sewage treatment technologies suitable for new urbanization and rural areas must be environmentally friendly and simple to manage, while also improving the resource utilization rate of rural sewage, so that treated water can be used for irrigation and fertilization.