China Water Transport Newspaper published a story on Wednesday 20 February quoting experts from the China Geological Survey Bureau as saying that 90 per cent of China’s underground water is polluted.

This followed reports in the local media that some paper mills and chemical plants in Weifang, Shandong province, have been found pumping their waste water into the ground in an attempt to evade regulatory supervision of waste water disposal. Such practices have been going on for years elsewhere in China, the paper said.

According to a recent official report, the paper said, data collected from 118 monitored cities showed that 64 per cent of their underground water was seriously polluted, and an additional 33 per cent slightly polluted. Only 3 per cent of the underground water in these cities was found to be clean.