China gears up to tackle tainted water

摘要

When rumours swirled earlier this year that factories in Weifang, China, were discharging waste water into the regions aquifers - the principal source of drinking water for the city's 9 million residents - citizens flocked to the Web to register their outrage on microblogging site Sina Weibo. The rumours were finally confirmed by officials in late May, further stoking public fears over an already hot issue: the sorry state of the water that so many Chinese people drink. Now, a massive government investigation has documented the scope of the problem in northern China, and officials have formulated an ambitious plan to tackle it.