Have you been noticing a little extra kick in the water recently?
Well, that just might have to do with the 100 tons of medical waste, broken bottles and household trash discovered earlier this week near an important drinking water reservoir in Shanghai.
Two ships are suspected of dumping the garbage upstream in the Yangtze River. The trash then flowed downstream and settled near the Dongfengxisha Reservoir on Shanghai’s Chongming Island. That reservoir is one of four main sources of drinking water for our fair city of 24 million — and provides water to the 700,000 residents of Chongming Island.
Four suspects have been detained for threatening these water sources and an investigation is ongoing.
In the meantime, over 40 workers have been dispatched to clean up the giant mess, but as you might expect, it’s going to take a while before things get back to normal. Shanghai Daily says give them two weeks.
Of course, Shanghai’s water authority claims that the water supply has not been threatened by this incident, but it has stopped the flow from the reservoir for now while the water quality is tested.
But hey, we’re not worried. Shanghai’s waterways have seen much worse than this.
After 13,000 dead pigs were dredged out of Shanghai’s Huangpu River in early 2013, city officials reassured residents that the water quality was “normal.” No matter how many water-logged pigs, ducks, fish or human corpses were spotted floating down the river, officials remained nonplussed.
So, really, what’s a little 100 tons of garbage?
We just hope that cargo ships have learned their lesson from this incident and will go back dumping trash into Suzhou’s water supply instead.
[Images via Basmati / ChinaNews]
