Water crisis in parched northern China
YIXIAN, China, Aug 4 (AFP) Aug 04, 2009
The river has dried up, the well yields only dust, and Li Yunxi is hard pressed to irrigate his plot of land, even though he lives right next to the largest water project in history. The elderly farmer watches in despair as his corn crop wilts under the scorching northern China sun, knowing that a fresh, abundant stream is only a stone’s throw away. “We ordinary people don’t dare use that water,” Li told AFP as he nodded toward the fenced-in canal, part of China’s hugely ambitious but troubled South-North Water Diversion Project. “That water is for Beijing, and people here do not steal water.” The temperatures have approached 40 degrees centigrade (104 degrees Fahrenheit) for weeks this summer in Hebei province, a region surrounding Beijing that has been stricken by drought for much of the last decade. But although Li’s crops are withering away, he is getting no sympathy from the authorities — quite the opposite. Earlier this year the government announced that the completion of the project’s central canal, stretching 1,300 kilometres (800 miles) from a tributary of the Yangtze river to Beijing, will be delayed five years to 2014. This means that instead of being a beneficiary of the project, Hebei will now be tasked with supplying water to the capital until the project is completed. …
