Helping Bring Clean Water to Harbin and Clean up the Songhua RiverBy Jet Damazo  

AS MILLIONS of people in the city of Harbin in the People's Republic of China (PRC) struggle to recover from the recent toxic spill in Songhua River, ADB is working on a number of projects that will help provide them with a cleaner and more reliable source of water.

The toxic spill highlighted the need to replace Harbin's primary water source. The Songhua River basin is the third largest river basin in the PRC, catering to a population of about 62 million. It is also, however, one of the most polluted. Contaminated with a number of organic chemicals, heavy metals, and other conventional pollutants, the river is considered unsuitable for municipal domestic water use.

A research study conducted by the Government in the 1990s had suggested a link between health problems in Harbin and known and suspected trace organic chemicals in the Songhua River, mainly as a result of pollution from petrochemical plants in Jilin Province.

"There was uncertainty as to the extent to which these chemicals could be removed even with the advanced water treatment, and thus the Heilongjiang Provincial Water Resources Development Leading Group recommended that a new water source be developed for Harbin's three million inhabitants," says Sangay Penjor, an ADB Principal Financial Specialist.

In 2003, ADB approved a US$100 million loan to help build a 42-meter high 356 million cubic meter reservoir at Mopanshan, on the upper reaches of the Lalin River, about 175 km from Harbin. The project, estimated to cost a total of $400 million, involves the construction of a tunnel and river outlet works, a water pipeline to Harbin, and a new treatment plant, as well as the rehabilitation of the distribution system.

The water treatment plant will be able to supply Harbin with 450,000 cubic meters per day, and a second phase (financed entirely by the Government) will bring in another 450,000 cubic meters per day from the same reservoir to Harbin. The distribution system will be separated to allow the reservoir water to supply residential areas, while the Songhua River continues to be used for industrial purposes.

"Clean water will start to flow from the reservoir in the latter part of 2006, a year and a half ahead of the original schedule of December 2007. By 2010, with the completion of the second phase of the Harbin project, Harbin would have enough water to replace the Songhua River as drinking water source completely," says Mr. Penjor.

"The clean drinking water from this source will improve the health and well being of the people of Harbin."

ADB also went upstream to directly tackle the pollution source in Jilin Province. Another project, backed by a $100 million loan from ADB approved earlier this year, will expand the currently inadequate wastewater treatment and sewerage system in Changchun, the capital of Jilin, to significantly reduce pollution in the Yitong, and Yongchun rivers, which flow into the Songhua River.

"The Project will help Changchun to achieve the goal of 70% wastewater treatment rate by 2010," says Mr. Penjor. "This project is ADB's first major intervention in directly addressing pollution control in the Songhua River basin."

A separate technical assistance project, backed by a $1 million grant from ADB approved in 2003, is helping the Government to more broadly address the river basin's pollution problem.

"Real improvements could only come on a river basin level and not individually from any city of province taken separately," says Sergei Popov, an ADB Project Specialist for the Environment and the project leader for the TA.

Through a process that involved all of the stakeholders at the central, provincial and interprovincial level, the TA developed a strategic $3.5 billion investment plan for the river basin. Based on this study, further cooperation in the Songhua River Basin is under consideration.

"ADB's involvement in the region is on a long-term basis. The recent disaster underscores the importance of this cooperation," says Mr. Popov.

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