Bejing Water Diversion Plan for Olympics Criticized

Plans to divert water to Beijing for the Olympic Games are shortsighted and will not ease the city's severe water crisis, a Canadian-based development policy group said in a study released recently.

Channeling water from neighboring provinces for an event billed as the “Green Olympics” is not a “fundamental solution,” Probe International said in its report, compiled by a team of experts in Beijing who requested anonymity. Such diversions are expensive and damage the environment, the report said.

“Whether diverting surface water or digging ever-deeper for groundwater, the underlying solution proposed is like trying to quench thirst by drinking poison,” the report said.
It didn't say why the compilers had requested anonymity, although the Olympics are a highly sensitive issue and authorities have responded harshly at times to perceived critics of the games.

Explosive growth combined with a persistent drought for over two decades have drawn down Beijing's water table, meaning the city of 17 million people is fast running out of water.

Beijing has drained surrounding regions in recent years to supply its growing water needs, depriving poor farmers of water and encouraging wasteful consumption, the report said.

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Nearly all Olympic venues and the Olympic Village will use treated wastewater for heating systems and toilets. Recycled wastewater also will irrigate the Olympic Park, which will include a wooded area and an artificial lake. But the rowing venue, built on the dried-out Chaobai river bed in Beijing's Shunyi district, will use precious reservoir water. An eight-mile underground tunnel will divert water from the Wenyu River to keep the landscape green.
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Again, Bejing has one of the world's lowest per person available water resources, at one-thirtieth of the world average. And yet, they continue to divert water from poor farmers and others who need it to make artificial lakes and landscaping for the Olympics which they are hoping will bring them a lot of $$$$$$$$$$$$$$. I am already boycotting the Bejing Olympics because of China's involvement with Sudan regarding drilling oil wells on land cleared in the Darfur genocide. These selfish moves regarding water diversion make another reason why a boycott is necessary.

This is simply wasteful at a time when water conservation is crucial to the people of China, especially considering 90% of their rivers are already polluted. The water they will provide in the toilets in Bejing to put on their "green" show will probably be cleaner than what their people have to drink now that is giving them cancer. Such is the power of the dollar bill, or yen.