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It's always a bit boring in the interim between human caused environmental disasters in China, so imagine how excited we were when we learned about that "fast spreading, foul-smelling" blue algae that contaminated water in nearby Tai Lake (太湖), where the ensuring panic which caused a run on bottled drinking water from Wuxi residents. Naturally, you're thinking that since 70% of Shanghai's drinking water comes the Huangpu (the other 30% from the Yangtze), and Tai Lake feeds into the Huangpu, that we in Shanghai are in for some malodorous times, but this report (in Chinese) reassures us that the we get water from the nice,clean parts of Tai Lake, not the shitty, algae-infested parts. Now we feel all better.
Photo from zjol.com
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I haven't seen any report that touches on the cause of this unusually early and large algae outbreak. Sure they do happen every year it sounds like, but typically algae really go wild in waters with high phosphate level which can be result of both industrial and residential water pollution. Most detergent and say shampoo can cause that for example. Anyone knows if this is an indication that 太湖 is just just extra polluted this year?
This outbreak, possibly fed by the above mentioned pollutants, could signify not just an increase in pollution concentration but also a decrease in total water volume. If you had sufficient water volume and sufficient circulation from Lake Tai's sources, through the lake and into Suzhou creek, there might be no or less severe blooms.
But look at the big picture, China just has less water due to nature and wasteful usage. Saltwater seepage into the Yangtze and the Yangtze delta's underground aquifers shows that there is less freshwater in the region so salt water exerts a higher pressure and fills in the gaps.
China is just falling apart with this water issue.