At the 3.5km junction of Dongting Lake and the Yangtze, an increasing number of small vessels are collecting and transhipping sand, creating a shipping hazard in the area, said the Yangtze River Administration under the Ministry of Transport. Yueyang MSA has launched a year-long campaign to bring greater order to the area. During the first month of this year, MSA officials boarded 1,660 vessels and ordered 53 of them to lighten, amounting to 33,300 tons of sand.

Because of its location, when it is the dry season and the water is shallow, it is relatively easy for small vessels to collect sand from the riverbed and ship it to construction sites up and down the river. The sand is transhipped to bigger vessels once it reaches the deeper waters of Yueyang port on the trunkline, so as to make the operation commercially viable.