Wuxi to invest over 10b yuan to treat Taihu Lake this year

Taihu Lake in Wuxi. [Photo/Wuxi Daily]

Wuxi in Jiangsu province plans to invest 11.36 billion yuan ($1.58 billion) to treat Taihu Lake this year, marking the third consecutive year that the city has made such an investment which exceeds 10 billion yuan.

The 204 treatment projects this year fall into 10 major categories, including water supply safety, industrial treatment, and waterway dredging.

To treat Taihu Lake, it is first necessary to treat its associated rivers, as Wuxi is home to 13 of the 15 main rivers in Jiangsu running into the lake. One third of the total investment will be used to treat riverways.

Taihu Lake in Wuxi. [Photo/Wuxi Daily]

The Jiangsu Environmental Monitoring Center has produced a pollutant heat map in accordance with various monitoring data and high-resolution satellite remote-sensing images.

A sewage draining exit treatment project in the city's Luoshe and Yangshan towns has commenced under the guidance of the heat map. "The map shows the riverway in Zhihu port area as red, meaning that there are much more pollutants in the river," explained Luo Qingji, from the Wuxi municipal bureau of ecology and environment.

Taihu Lake in Wuxi. [Photo/Wuxi Daily]

Staff members from the bureau subsequently used drones to check for pollution sources one by one and, finally, found the primary causes – an incomplete diversion of rain and sewage water, as well as spillover on sunny days.

Additionally, this year's treatment will focus heavily on environmental infrastructure. The urban domestic sewage treatment capacity will be increased by 145,000 metric tons per day, 31 kilometers of sewage pipes will be established or renovated, and more than 10 industrial sewage treatment plants will be constructed.