(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-02-19 23:59

The Yangtze's main stream flows along the reservoir more slowly than before. This restrains the water body from self cleaning, thus expanding polluted areas, the document said.

The tide beach, due to the reservoir's seasonal water level change, will expand to 300 square kilometers when the water level rises to 175 meters next year from the current 156 meters. This area will be vulnerable to pollution, it said.

SEPA and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) jointly finished the amendment to the plan last month, aiming to cope with the challenges.

About 460 projects will be built in next three years with an investment of 22.82 billion yuan (US$3.13 billion), according to the plan.

To ensure the implementation, the plan listed several supervision policies. An annual assessment will be made on projects under construction, water quality, pollution volume and management.

"Government officials in charge will be denounced and punished if serious environmental damage happened due to administrative flaws or they try to interfere with enforcement of environmental departments," the document said.

The public is encouraged to supervise the environmental management and report problems. "Citizens, corporations and other organizations shall turn to the court for compensation if being threatened by water pollution."

The China Three Gorges Project Corporation, the dam operator, also introduced its own environmental remediation projects this year. They include a new water plant, a waste water processing factory, a processing ground to handle algae blooms and silt in dammed water and a breeding center for protected fish species in the upper reaches of the river.

The dam, which stands at 185 meters above sea level and holds 39 billion cubic meters of water, began construction in 1994 to tame periodic devastating floods on the Yangtze and generate clean energy.

The 180 billion yuan project reduces the threat of floods on the Yangtze from once every 10 years to once every 100 years.

The government has invested heavily in programs designed to restore and conserve the ecology of the Three Gorges area in recent years, including 12 billion yuan spent on trying to harness geological disasters such as landslides.

It has also closed or relocated 1,500 manufacturing ventures, constructed more than 70 sewage disposal and waste treatment plants and resettled about 70,000 people from disaster-prone areas.

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