Dwell alongside the Yangzter River but not feed on its water.

　　Along the Yangzter River, Yichang City is one of the few cities whose citizens feed on the spring water.

　　In order to make millions of citizens  drink clean water, Yichang Water Conservancy Department has made unremitting efforts to strengthen the protection of water sources with steadfast determination.

　　Up to now, Yichang City has a total of 28 water sources, with water-supply amounting  to 775,000 tons per day, covering the population of 2.269 million.

　　To strengthen the efforts to protect urban area drinking water sources , Yichang Water Conservancy Department actively sought the favorable policy, and the municipal government successively introduced the following normative ducuments like Administrative Measures for Huangbaihe River Basin Water Sources Protection in Yichang City , Municipal People’s Government Decision on the Delimitation of Drinking Water Source Protection Area in Guanzhuang Reservoir, the Municipal People’s Government Office’s Notice on Strengthening the Construction and  Management of the Drinking Water Souorce Protection Area of Shanxichong Reservoir, etc., and clarified the scope of urban drinking water protection area, the water qulity standard, the prohibitions and the management responsibility of related departments. In 2011, Provincial General Office officially approved the plans of division of 16 urban drinking water protection areas. In the early July, 2012, representatives of Municipal People’s Congress inspected the urban drinking water’s protection in Yichang City, and on the Third Meeting of the Fifth Session of the Standing Committee discussed and approved the Decision on Strenthening the Protection of Urban Area Drinking Water Sources.

　　To protect water resource scientifically and rationally and ensure the safety of driking water, Yichang Water Conservancy Department strived to take some water sources into the Planning Report of Urbarn Drinking Water Sources Safety in Hubei Province, such as Guanzhuang, Nanmuxi, Gonghe, Lujiagang, which specifically cope with the problems like insufficient water supply in cities and towns, standardization construction, pollution prevention, isolation protection, and so on.

　　The governments of the city and county took the particular approach to gather funds primarily from superior investment and also supplemented by local supportive funds, to reinforce the intensity of treatment and elimination of risk of drinking water sources protection in reservoir area. So far,  323 small and medium-sized reservoirs are in the National Reinforcement Project, 17 rivers come into the scope of national treatment of middle and small rivers, with a total investment of over $1.24 billion RMB.

　　In 2012, Yichang City tried to gather 4 million RMB from Three Gorges Power Station for the water source protection in Huangbaihe River Basin. Meanwhile, The governments of the city, county and the Water Concervacy Department aimed to strenthen the standardization construction of water source area under the guidance of “Sanchenglianchuang” (building Yichang into the national civilized city, the national sanitary city, and the national environmental protection

　　model city)

　　Since 2005, Yichang Government began to implement an cleanup operation on the rivers and basins, focusing on the standardized cleanup treatment on the artificial feeding of the aquatic product in first-class protection area in the east branch of Huangbaihe River Basin, successfully banning the largest cage culture in the northwest reservoir region, effectively keep down the trend that scatterd farmers expand the cage culture scale in the northwest reservoir region. Tianfumiao Reservoir grasped the chance of reinforcement, prohibited the cage culture and fishfarming by stopping the river branches, and practiced natural breeding.

　　Since 2007, the Municipal Government has organized the departments in charge of water conservancy, environmental protection and development and reform to have 7 special inspections on constructional projects that are likely to contaminate the water of the Huangbaihe River Basin. In October, 2008, with the efforts made by all the relevant departments, a goldmine in the protection zone was closed, four subordinate phosphorite mines of a large chemical corporation required to stop production for optimization and improvement, and one phosphorite beneficiation project in planning cancelled.

　　The Municipal Government has classified four reservoirs in the eastern section of Huangbo River Basin as the first-class protected waters for  drinking water supply, where anything that destroys the ecological balance of water in the basin is prohibited. Practically, through coordination, fifty aquacultural cages set in one of the reservoirs were removed in 2008 for supply of clean water to millions of urban residents.

　　Besides, in recent years, the access of industrial construction projects to Yichang has been strictly controlled and supervised to maintain the water source intact. For example, in construction of the Yichang-Badong section of the Shanghai-Chengdu Highway, the original design that the highway need go through the water source protection zone was finally rejected. Similarly, a large domestic steel works failed to build an iron ore factory in the protection zone.

　　According to the state environmental quality standards for surface water, the Municipal Water Conservancy Bureau has the water quality strictly monitored regularly and the results publicized on Three Gorges Daily in time, as suggest that the rate of standard-obtained central drinking water supply to urban area in Yichang reaches 100 percent.

　　To ensure the water in Gonghe Reservoir uncontaminated and water for residents’ daily need and industrial production regularly supplied in urban area of Dangyang City in Yichang, the relevant departments of environmental protection and water conservancy did some surveys on environmental protection of Gonghe Reservoir. As the surveys suggested the result of pollution of the reservoir water should be caused by aquatic breeding, three aquatic breeding bases were removed and the reservoir water purified in many ways. As a result, the water in there has long been maintained uncontaminated.

　　As planned, protection of drinking water source will be included in performance evaluation of the governmental departments in Yichang, and the abilities of water source protection, water management and water decontamination will also be further improved in the future.

　　(Correspondent Guo Lidan, Reporter Mei Yunxiong)