A pilot project using a type of invasive water hyacinth species to reverse the process of eutrophication that has led to large-scale algae outbreaks in Dianchi Lake will launch today at the lake's southern end.

A Kunming Information Hub story reported that the project will experiment with controlled growing of the prolific aquatic plant to filter nitrogen and phosphorus out of the lake and create a source of biomass that can be used as fertilizer or to produce methane gas for generating electricity.

Dianchi's water quality is currently ranked class V, meaning it is unfit for human consumption or even agricultural or industrial use.

So far 6.7 hectares of water hyacinth have been planted and a processing factory constructed near the southern end of Dianchi in Jinning County. The hyacinth growing area is slated to eventually grow to 67 hectares.

Water hyacinth is native to South America but has choked lakes around the world including, famously, Lake Victoria in Africa.

Water hyacinth was originally considered a threat to Dianchi because it could outcompete other species and choke the lake. But now that agricultural and residential runoff have created an overabundance of nitrogen and phosphorus in the lake, scientists are hoping the plant can absorb large amounts of those substances from the water.

The pilot project aims to develop better methods of mechanized harvesting and converting the plant into fertilizer or methane gas.

It is unclear if this project is part of any sort of larger comprehensive strategy for cleaning up the lake, on which 100 billion yuan (US$ 14.6 billion) is expected to be spent by the year 2020.

Image: Human Flower Project

New environmental legislation by the Kunming municipal government will create approximately 430 square kilometers of protected areas which will be known as the Dianchi Plateau Wetlands Protected Areas, according to a Sina.com report. An official timetable for the creation of the protected areas has yet to be made public.

According to a statement released by the Kunming Municipal People's Standing Committee, the city's goal is to develop into a sustainable metropolis with a healthy Dianchi. Since Dianchi's water quality nosedived in the 1980s, the Kunming and Yunnan governments have spent billions of dollars on cleaning up Dianchi, with negligible results.

Resolutions passed recently by the committee have created four types of protected zones, according to government English-language news site en.kunming.cn:

1) Core areas of four drinking water reservoirs covering approximately 13 square kilometers. The reservoirs are now first-level protected areas – no individual or organization is permitted to enter these premises except for scientific research purposes.

2) Seasonal core areas, covering nearly 300 square kilometers, which will be protected at the same level as the core areas during certain periods such as fishing bans.

3) Buffer areas of forested land surrounding the drinking water reservoirs, totaling approximately 17 square kilometers. No infrastructure projects or activities that harm the environment will be permitted in the buffer areas.

4) Experimental areas composed of just over 100 square kilometers of land with a damaged forest ecosystem. These lands are located near the reservoirs, along the 36 rivers that flow in or out of Dianchi, along the lake's shores and also Xishan, the mountain situated on Dianchi's west side. Ecotourism activities will be permitted in the experimental areas, provided that they do not harm the environment or scenery.

While far from fixing Dianchi's severe eutrophication problems which have turned much of the lake a soupy lime green, the creation of the Dianchi Plateau Wetlands Protected Areas is one of the more decisive measures that have been taken by the Kunming municipal government to address some of the root causes of the lake's pollution.

In 2007 the current government under Kunming Party Secretary Qiu He (仇和) and Mayor Zhang Zulin (张祖林) inherited the seemingly unfixable Dianchi problem. But unlike under previous governments, there is some visible progress being made, the biggest example being the improvement in water quality of the Panlong River, the largest of the rivers draining into Dianchi.

In March of this year, the city government allocated one billion yuan for lake cleanup and also assigned one official to each of the 35 rivers flowing into Dianchi.

In addition to environmental measures, a Dianchi Lake bike path which will circle the lake is currently under construction, and is expected to be completed next year.

Kunming's Second Ring Road open to traffic
After one year of demolition and reconstruction, Kunming's second ring road (二环) is now open to test traffic and will officially open to the public on Wednesday.

Local media is gushing about the completion of the ring road, which will serve as the linchpin in the city's "four rings, 17 spokes" traffic plan, in which expansion of the city's traffic system from two ring roads centered around Green Lake Park to four ring roads – the fourth encircling Dianchi Lake – will shift the center of the city's traffic structure southward, coinciding with the development of "New Kunming" in Chenggong.

According to government traffic officials, once on the second ring road, it will be possible for cars to reach destinations including Chenggong, Anning, Jinning, Kunyang, Haikou, and Songming. Travel time from to Yiliang, Luquan, Shilin and Xundian will be reduced to one hour.

Dali – Lijiang rail line open to public tomorrow
Beginning tomorrow, the new Dali-Lijiang rail line (大丽铁路) will officially open to the public, linking the two popular tourist destinations by rail for the first time.

The Dali-Lijiang passenger line will operate daily, with hard seats on the L9016/7 (Dali to Lijiang) and the L9018/5 (Lijiang to Dali) costing 34 yuan. Total time for the journey is approximately three hours and 45 minutes.

The L9016/7 Leaves Dali at 9:26 am, stops for two minutes at Shangguan at 10:51 and arrives at Lijiang at 1:12 pm. The L9018/5 leaves Lijiang East Station at 1:45 pm, stops in Shangguan for two minutes at 3:59 pm and arrives in Dali at 5:26 pm.

Southwest China's first IMAX theater to open in Kunming
At the end of this month Kunming will become the first city in Southwest China with an IMAX Theater, according to government-run BBS clzg.cn.

The theater, which features a 12 meters high by 21 meters wide screen, is located in the new Shuncheng Shopping Center on Dongfeng Xi Lu. The shopping center, which will also be home to retail outlets including Zara and Papa John's, is built on the old Shuncheng Muslim quarter, which prior to its demolition in 2004 was a dilapidated but vibrant neighborhood filled with Hui and Uighur restaurants.

Image: news.kunming.cn

Kunming explorer not "kidnapped by terrorists"
Hours after Kunming newspapers went to print with the news that local resident and domestically famous explorer Jin Feibao (金飞豹) may have been "kidnapped by terrorists" in the Sahara near the border of Algeria and Mali, Jin made telephone contact with his wife Li Jia (李佳) at 1:00 this morning.

Li said Jin and his travel partner geologist Fei Xuan (费宣) were safe and in good shape. Jin and Fei are in the middle of an 80-day expedition across the Sahara Desert.

Prior to this morning's phone call, Jin's Kunming support team had not heard from the travelers for three days. Before the break in communication the two had been in daily contact with Jin's strategic planning company via portable satellite communication equipment.

West Kunming's Majie to get makeover
On Monday Kunming's Xishan district government officially launched the Majie New Town Project, which will convert the Majie area around Chunyu Lu into a base for commodity trade with Southeast Asian markets.

Over the next three to five years the Majie area will be converted into Kunming's western business and transport hub. Total investment in the project is expected to reach 10 billion yuan (US$1.46 billion) part of which will be spent on construction of high-grade office and commercial space.

Bank of China grants loan for Dianchi cleanup
The Yunnan branch of the Bank of China has extended a 4 billion yuan loan to Kunming Dianchi Lake Investment Company for lake and wetland cleanup projects that are scheduled for completion next year.

According to a ChinaCSR report, the loan will be used to divert polluted lake water to the Yunihe, Baiyuhe, Kunyang and Haikou wastewater treatment plants. Four rain water processing plants and a condensate pump station will also be constructed.

Jin Feibao image: news.kunming.cn
Majie image: en.kunming.cn

In what has seemingly become a yearly ritual, Kunming's municipal government announced yesterday that it will allocate one billion yuan (US$146 million) to clean up Dianchi Lake.

The announcement of big government initiatives to clean up Dianchi Lake and the 35 heavily polluted rivers that flow into it is nothing new – what is new is the relative frankness of yesterday's announcement by Kunming mayor Zhang Zulin (张祖林) during an interview with China Daily in which he referred to the lake as an "eyesore" and said that cleaning the lake has been "one of the most difficult problems for the country".

At present, the lake is covered with a slimy layer of green algae and a heavy smell of human waste, which is attributable to most of the city's domestic sewage being pumped directly into the lake, according to Yunnan Normal University professor Li Kangli, as cited by China Daily.

Zhang said that cleaning up Dianchi is at the top of Kunming's agenda for 2009, but making even mild progress on the lake's cleanup will require a massive effort. Since the 1990s there have been several highly publicized attempts by the municipal government to clean up the lake, none of them yielding any substantial results.

Some government cleanup work has actually worsened the situation – in October 2006 a dredge that was supposed to be cleaning Dianchi was actually discharging used oil into the lake, creating an 18,200 square meter oil slick on the lake, which was once the source of Kunming's drinking water.

Mayor Zhang said that the Kunming government would be working on "controlling sources of pollution, dredging, diverting other water sources and the ecological restoration of the lake". Each of the 35 polluted rivers flowing into the lake have had an official assigned to oversee treatment.

Heavy emphasis is being placed on the Panlong River (盘龙江), which according to city statistics is responsible for more than 40 percent of the pollution flowing into Dianchi in recent years.

By 2020, 100 billion yuan in funds will have been spent on cleaning up the lake, according to unnamed government sources cited in the China Daily report.

Note: The above photo of a child swimming in Dianchi Lake was taken in July 2008 and won the bronze prize in the China News Photography Institute's annual 'Golden Lens' news photograph competition earlier this month.

Image: news.sina.com

Kunming to go 3G in June
According to a Kunming Daily report, Kunming is one of 28 second- and third-tier cities in China in which 3G mobile phone licenses will be issued in June of this year. 3G licenses were reportedly to have been issued in first-tier markets including Guangdong and Shanghai yesterday.

Another billion dollars to be spent cleaning Dianchi
Yunnan Governor Qin Guangrong (秦光荣) convened a meeting with the Dianchi Lake Water Pollution and Treatment Work Group in which he emphasized that the six major engineering projects aimed at improving the lake's water quality must be fully implemented according to the schedule approved last year.

Spending this year on cleaning up the lake – China's sixth-largest freshwater lake – will total approximately 9.2 billion yuan (US$1.3 billion), adding to the billions of dollars that have already been spent in futility on addressing the lake's environmental degradation over the last two decades.

Security wall destroyed by club-carrying mob
More than 200 men armed with clubs destroyed a security wall surrounding the Yangguang Huaerzi residential development near the Xiba River yesterday. For reasons unknown, the mob of men appeared suddenly at the development, quickly destroyed approximately 100 meters of the wall surrounding the development, then reportedly 'disappeared in a flash'.

According to reports, three security guards were injured by the mob and one journalist's camera was destroyed.

Shaolin monks can eat lufu
Dushi Shibao is reporting that Kunming's favorite new neighbors, the Shaolin monks, are able to eat the pungent local snack lufu (卤腐), a type of fermented tofu. 太板扎了噶!

Ground was broken yesterday on a new bicycle and pedestrian path that will encircle Dianchi Lake and will be off limits to motorized vehicles, according to Kunming media reports.

The so-called "Dianchi Landscape Path" (环滇池景观道) will be a total of 75.75 kilometers (47 miles) long. In addition to offering views of the heavily polluted, occasionally miasmatic but generally scenic Dianchi Lake, the path will also be accompanied by a landscaped green belt. It is scheduled for completion within two years.

The path's construction comes at a time when fewer Kunming residents are riding bicycles and more are driving their own cars or riding electric bicycles. Not so long ago, a two-day bicycle ride around the lake on the roads encircling Dianchi Lake was a popular weekend getaway for university students to get some exercise, or more often, for young lovers to escape from the lack of privacy of dorm life.

Today, local media often refers to Kunming as Ducheng (堵城), loosely meaning "Congestion City", as cars have taken over the city. Car ownership rates are climbing quickly and at last count more than 560 motorized vehicles were being registered in the city each day.

With most of the city's road resources being mobilized to deal with more and more cars, the Dianchi Landscape Path is a rare investment in Kunming's cycling and pedestrian infrastructure.

Not surprisingly, the path's construction is the lesser half of the 8.8 billion yuan (US$1.3 billion) "Two Rings" construction project that also includes renovation of Huanhu Lu (环湖路), the road that encircles Dianchi Lake, which will be constructed into an eight-lane highway.

Image: ncic.ac.cn

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Despite being landlocked, Yunnan has plenty of water, including the headwaters of the Yangtze, Mekong and Salween Rivers. It is also home to nine large lakes, with Kunming's Dianchi Lake (滇池) the biggest of the group.

Dianchi Lake is also famous for being heavily polluted – to the point where its water is unfit for industrial use. Yunnan's polluted lake club has recently added a new member – Yangzonghai Lake (阳宗海) – which the provincial government announced has heavy levels of arsenic in its waters. Yangzonghai is now officially considered unfit for drinking, swimming in or fishing in.

The arsenic discovery came during a snap inspection of enterprises operating in the Yangzonghai basin 45 kilometers east of Kunming, with eight companies found to be engaging in illegal polluting practices. Yunnan Chengjiang Jinye Industrial and Trade Co Ltd (云南澄江锦业工贸有限公司) has been named as the main polluter.

The company allegedly failed to build the legally required treatment facility for its wastewater, with years of accumulated arsenic seeping into the local water table. Yunnan Communist Party Secretary Bai Enpei (白恩培) and Yunnan Governor Qin Guangrong (秦光荣) have pledged to take "decisive action" to remedy the situation.

As recently as 2002, Yangzonghai had been noted for having water clean enough for drinking and swimming – a stark contrast to the environmental devastation of nearby Dianchi Lake. In February of this year, Kunming Communist Party Secretary Qiu He (仇和) visited Yangzonghai, warning local enterprises that the lake must not become a "second Dianchi".

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