Proposed canal project sparks environmental uneasiness
- Source: Global Times
- [02:34 March 03 2010]
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By Ji Beibei
A proposal to build a canal connecting East China's Jiangxi Province with neighboring Guangdong Province has sparked controversy among environmentalists who feel the project will create irreversible damage to a large freshwater lake.
The about 1,240-kilometer canal will connect the Ganjiang River in Jiangxi and Pearl River in Guangdong, the Guangzhou Daily reported Tuesday.
The canal will start in Poyang Lake, the largest freshwater lake in China, in the north and will link with South Sea after passing through the Pearl River, an unidentified source at the Jiangxi Water Project Planning Institute told the newspaper.
But a worker at the institute told the Global Times that the institute has not been commissioned to design the canal, and refused to say whether the plan was halted due to opposition.
Poyang Lake is one of the wetland homes for endangered migrant birds in the country, and the Ganjiang River, the largest river in Jiangxi, is one of its main water source.
An online survey showed that 48.7 percent of the respondents believe the project will create more problems than benefits, and only 29 percent of them opposed it, the newspaper reported.
Supporters of the project said the canal will bring better integration between the two provinces and improve the electricity supply, fish cultivation and tourism. But some experts said the project will create environmental problems.
"The water quantity of the Poyang Lake will drop," Zhang Li, an expert from Jiangxi Normal University, who also works in a key research lab of the lake's wetland protection team, told the Global Times Tuesday, adding that the water level of the lake is already dropping because of global warming.
Zhang Guobao, a deputy director of the State Development and Reform Commission, said the water of Poyang Lake is less than 200 million cubic meters, an earlier report by 21st Century Business Herald said.
A local resident Jiang Meiyuan told the Global Times that she was worried that the lake will be polluted.
Ma Zhihui, an expert from Jiangxi Academy of Social Science, told Guangzhou Daily that Jiangxi is not ready for the large project even though it will facilitate development.
