If anyone has been wondering why a pipeline has appeared IN Panlong river (at least north and south of Baiyun Lu), it is to run clean water from north to Dianchi lake.

Apparently the river picked up too much rubbish on the way to let it run the course on its own.

so what now, will the waterways in the town turn black and stinky with stagnant water again? assume all of the rubbish that was being flushed out of the city could have been trapped and collected before it got to dianchi. shame, i was enjoying the clean waterways in town.

When they first opened the gate on the water diversion project, it was pretty evident that the panlong water turned from crystal clear in the north to a dirty brown by the time it neared remin lu, just the halfway mark. That was like more than a year ago. Not sure how they couldn't understand that the water diversion project wasn't going work if they didn't stop polluted run off from going in the first place. The same can be said of all the other clean dianchi projects, you gotta stop waste run off first. Just like this pipe idea is doomed to fail as long as waste run off is directly entering dianchi.

Still, I'm kinda surprised they bothered with a pipe at all. I've always cynically suspected that the whole water project up north was just a facade to power up the man-made falls and enrich the developers offering villa views of it.

dirty brown is usually sediment, that is normal for sudden increase in flow.

Guess dirty wasn't a good enough description of what I witnessed following the panlong after the first few days after they opened the gates. It started with crystal clear water with river plants and white cranes. It turned greyish semi transparent by the time it reached linyu rd. After that, it was all downhill pollution wise. Trash started showing up along with slicks of oil. By time it hit remin lu, it was the same dirty brown polluted city run off I was used to. Surprisingly, it gets a bit cleaner again after the 2nd ring road, as there is a mini storm catch setup there. Bit cleaner, but not crystal clear like at the start up North. But simIlar to the North to remin lu, somewhat clean from the 2nd ring catch station to dianchi itself, the water becomes polluted again, though there is a stretch of river grasses toward the end, but no white cranes.

I haven't checked recently, but my guess is the piping doesn't go all the way north to dianchi, but just through the city, to avoid the most polluted sector. Anyone who has been cycling or walking the south panlong sections seen the pipe?

I'm amazed people still regularly swim in the river.

They do? Damn!

There are signs everywhere swimming

is prohibited.

I guess they think they are merely suggestions.

Same as no-smoking signs.

Ha Ha. Right!!!