Shenzhen’s largest (and the PRD’s dirtiest) river and 22 proposed new power stations are the latest pollution concerns in the region.

People’s Daily reported this week that the silt and sewage that led Shenzhen’s Maozhou River to be labelled the most polluted in the Pearl River Delta is not getting any better, affecting the living environments of three million people.

On Monday (August 26), a reporter from the paper stood on the banks of the river in Bao’an District and could barely breathe as pollution from factories and waste from construction sites in Bao’an and Dongguan had left a pungent smell. The everyday litter that runs on the river’s surface does nothing for the river’s cleanliness either.

The Maozhou River, image courtesy of Xinhua

The river’s basin area takes in over 300 square km and the pollution has been getting worse every year since the 1990s as 22,000 industrial enterprises have set up shop near the river, 250 of which have been deemed “heavily polluting”.

Mrs Chen has lived by the side of the river for 10 years and says her family seldom opens the window.

Shenzhen Daily reported early this month that a 1.75 billion yuan cleanup project of the river will be completed in 2015. However, the regular discharge of domestic sewage into the river will have to be prevented to make the operation work.

In other environmental news, Shanghaiist reported that 22 new power stations planned for deployment in Guangdong could kill up to 16,000 people over 40 years through pollution, according to a study.

Image via Shanghaiist

South China Morning Post has more:

Of the predicted 16,000 premature deaths in the next four decades, two-thirds would be related to strokes, the report said. The rest would be from lung cancer and heart disease.
It said the pollution would also lead to 15,000 new cases of child asthma and 19,000 of chronic bronchitis.
Most new deaths and child asthma cases would be in the delta region, with 1,700 and 1,300 respectively in Hong Kong.