Pollution of rivers at Primorye-China border remains high.

10/2 Tass 80

VLADIVOSTOK, February 10 (Itar-Tass) - The pollution of rivers flowing
at the Primorye (maritime territory) - China border remains high. This
conclusion was drawn on Wednesday at a session of the Joint Coordinating
Commission and the Joint Working Group of Experts on Sino-Russian
monitoring of the quality of transborder water bodies.
Varvara Koridze, press secretary of the Primhydromet (Primorye
Territory Service for Hydrometeorology and Environmental Monitoring), has
told Itar-Tass that the work done in 2010 confirmed the findings of the
previous three years of monitoring. As a result of a comprehensive
assessment, water in the river Razdolnaya (Suifen) in the transborder
sector is estimated as "polluted" while the quality of water at the rise
of the Songacha River changed from "polluted" in 2007 to "highly polluted"
in 2008 and to "dirty" in 2009-2010.
Specialists of Primhydromet and the environment monitoring departments
of the Chinese cities of Mudanjiang and Jixi have been monitoring the
transborder rivers Razdolnaya, Songacha and Lake Khanka for four years.
Surveys are carried out twice a year, in spring and in autumn, by each
side, after which hydrologists exchange the water samples taken and
scrutinize them independently. Findings make it possible to draw an
impartial conclusion about the extent of pollution of the water reservoirs.
The problem of pollution of transborder rivers and Lake Khanka is of
current concern in the light of China's intensive economic activities.
Heilongjiang Province alone discharges over 11,000 million cubic metres of
non-purified industrial effluents and household refuse into streams in of
the Amur River catchment area, to which some rivers of Primorye are
attributed.
The 245-km-long Razdolnaya River originates in China and flows in
Primorye Territory for a distance of 191 km. The Songacha River flows from
the border Lake Khanka and falls into the Ussuri River, a tributary of the
Amur. Lake Khanka is a unique water reservoir with an area of 4,200
hectares; 42 fish species -- practically all freshwater fauna species of
the Far East inhabit it, including those entered in the International Red
Data Book: yellow-cheeked darter (Elopichthys bambusa), Chinese perch,
Black Amur bream, etc.
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