Shanghai's drinking water

Shanghai's drinking water meets China's sanitary requirements and can be taken safely, indicated Jiao Yang, Shanghai Municipal Government news spokesman, on a regular press conference held on March 15th.

Jiao made the above remark in response to a Taiwanese reporter's question about Shanghai's drinking water quality during the press conference of the Fourth Session of the Tenth National People's Congress.
He said that Shanghai Municipal Government always attaches much importance to drinking water safety, and has invested over 5 billion RMB (US$617 million) to build two water supply systems of Huangpu River and Yangtze River in an effort to improve the city's water quality from the sources.
National authoritative organizations' tests show that the city's tap water records a qualification rate of 99.95% in terms of four major indexes, namely remaining chlorine, feculence, bacteria and Escherichia coli, and qualification rates of above 99% regarding 32 comprehensive indexes. Hence the fresh water in Shanghai is safe and up to the national standards.

Jiao mentioned that based on its environmental protection campaign schedule, Shanghai government has cleaned 200-odd watercourses in the previous three years, and now the watercourses in the downtown are no longer dirty and smelly in general. With further progress of the environmental protection campaign, the city's natural environment will see constant improvement.

Jiao added that owing to aging of tap water pipes, some residents in Shanghai might have found yellowish tap water in their houses. Water tank cleaning also causes cloudy tap water sometimes. Regarding the above situations, the municipal government has been renovating and improving the city's urban water supply systems in recent years, and the above situations will definitely improve via these efforts.