Drinking tea in Hotan no longer a problem
Print Edition
YARMAMAT Islam has taken water from three different sources — flood pits, water towers and taps.
For residents living near Taklimakan Desert in northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, access to water all year round has never been easy. Compared with his ancestors, Yarmamat is the lucky one.
When he was a child, his parents and fellow villagers would divert summer floods into pits. The village would depend on the water stored there from June to November.
This was the way people in Hotan Prefecture had survived water shortages for hundreds of years.
Not only people, but household animals such as donkeys and sheep also drank from the pits. As time went by, animal waste, fallen leaves and litter accumulated and the water turned green and foul.
Villagers had to remove the waste when fetching water and let it settle before boiling it. Even so, the dirty water meant villagers suffered from typhoid, dysentery and cholera.
Flood pits were still a common sight in Hotan villages until the 1990s.
“No matter if it was diarrhea or goiter waiting ahead, we had no choice but to drink from the flood pits. They guaranteed the survival of our ancestors and us,” Yarmamat said.
In the 1980s, a government campaign started to drill wells, build water towers and lay pipelines to solve the drinking problem.
But due to the harsh natural environment and its weak economy, the campaign in Hotan progressed slowly. Many farmers still heavily depended on flood pits.
In 1995, the government was determined to solve the problem in the next three years by expanding its investment and using private funds.
Driven by a 300 million yuan (US$44 million) special government fund, non-governmental sectors chipped in and raised 15 million yuan in just a month.
More than 600 water towers were soon erected and 5,000 wells drilled across Hotan. Local residents were finally liberated from the heavy labor of fetching water from flood pits and had more time to farm.
With more income and the elimination of water-caused infectious diseases, living standards improved.
“The groundwater is clean and easy to access, and does not taste as bitter as pit water,” Yarmamat said. When he serves hot tea to his guests they “do not have to worry about stomach ache.”
To supply high quality tap water to local residents, work continues at Hotan’s water treatment plants.
This is one of the major projects led by the city of Beijing to aid Hotan’s development. It will improve the quality of tap water in accordance with Beijing standards, which is higher than the national tap water standard.
On completion, the 300,000 residents in Hotan will have access to high quality water to the same standards as the capital. “We will not only provide sanitary water to local people, but also healthy water,” said Wang Zhaolong, a Beijing official.
In March 2010, China initiated a “pairing assistance” program to support Xinjiang in building new infrastructure and developing local industry. The program requires 19 provinces and cities to support development in the region.
Beijing officials working in Xinjiang have come to understand the water quality in Hotan over the past six years. “Heavy scale can be found in the pot after being used for only two weeks,” said Zhang Fengbo, an inland doctor working in the region.
“More than 70 percent of my patients suffered lithiasis in 2015,” Zhang said.
Lithiasis is the formation of stones in the gall bladder or urinary tract.
In the summer of 2016, water experts were invited to research local water quality.
“Similar to water in other northwestern areas of China, Hotan’s water tastes bitter and salty. Frequent drinking may result in yellow teeth and lithiasis,” said Zhang Yongqiang, executive manager of the Hotan water treatment plant project.
It means the quality of underground water in Hotan is far below that of healthy water.
As of March, an investment of more than 97 million yuan had been raised by the Beijing government to renovate collecting tanks, purify equipment, and monitor facilities in water treatment plants.
Zhang said the new equipment could effectively treat the highly mineralized water. “It is just like installing water purifiers in the city,” Zhang said.
Hotan people can now, finally, drink healthy water.
“I never dreamt that I could drink water of such high quality,” said Yarmamat.
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