China’s Sick Yellow River

China’s water pollution is even worse than its better-known air pollution. As long as the Chinese people have few private rights, government-backed pollution will continue.

Beijing is an unhealthy place to live. The air in China’s capital often has over ten times the safety limits established by the World Health Organization for particulates and other potential dangers to health. This problem has received widespread coverage in newspapers around the world, yet the problem with water quality in China is even worse than its air quality, but less visible to foreign correspondents.
According to Peter Gleick, Director of the Pacific Institute, China’s water resources are “grossly polluted by human and industrial wastes, to the point that vast stretches of rivers are dead and dying, lakes are cesspools of waste, groundwater aquifers are over-pumped and unsustainably consumed, uncounted species of aquatic life have been driven to extinction, and direct adverse impacts on both human and ecosystem health are widespread and growing.... Of the 20 most seriously polluted cities in the world, 16 are in China.”

Read more: http://www.american.com/archive/2013/january/chinas-sick-yellow-river