U.S. Water News Online
BEIJING -- China has adopted a tougher national standard for drinking water that health officials said will be a step toward providing safe drinking water to the hundreds of millions of citizens who currently go without safe water.
The previous drinking water standard did not adequately protect people, and the new standard will raise the quality of tap water, Health Ministry official Zhang Chengyu said.
"In some of China's cities, the water supply has been contaminated and residents are threatened with unsafe water," Zhang said.
Health officials hope the new drinking water standard will change that.
The Health Ministry announced it will add 71 new benchmarks to the 35 required under the previous standard, which was adopted in 1985.
About a quarter of China's population lacks access to safe drinking water, and despite repeated government pledges of a cleanup, the situation is worsening.
China's three-decade economic boom has left its waterways and coastlines severely polluted by industrial and farm chemicals and domestic sewage. Its countryside is littered with garbage and construction waste, and its cities suffocated by smog.
Separately, Beijing recorded the worst air quality for June in the past seven years, missing benchmarks for cleaning up smog, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Environmental Protection reported on its Web site.
Beijing's filthy air is one of the biggest concerns of the International Olympic Committee and 2008 Olympic organizers, who worry the performance of elite athletes will be hampered.
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