The sewage treatment plant has been built, why the sewage is still discharged directly into the Yellow River
In some underdeveloped areas in the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River, management and construction are not operating, and some sewage treatment plants are reduced to septic tank
There is a sewage treatment plant, but a lot of sewage is still discharged directly and eventually into the Yellow River; due to the high operating cost, some sewage treatment stations have no choice but to "sleep" or even "reduced" into septic tanks.
Xinhua Daily Telegraph reporters recently visited a number of underdeveloped areas along the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River and found that due to inadequate infrastructure construction, poor equipment operation, and high daily operating costs, many areas have “built sewage treatment plants, but sewage treatment is still difficult. ".
There is a treatment plant but there is still direct sewage discharge, pollution control in the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River is still a problem
Many parties have invested in the establishment of sewage treatment plants. Due to insufficient treatment capacity, low efficiency and limited coverage, sewage is still difficult to "collect and treat all."
Some residents’ domestic sewage can only be discharged directly and eventually flows into the Yellow River. This is what the reporter learned when visiting the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River.
In a county in the middle reaches of the Yellow River, a first-level tributary of the Yellow River passes through it.
The cadres of the local environmental protection department introduced that due to the strengthening of supervision in recent years, the discharge of industrial wastewater has basically reached the standard, and the current main pollution comes from rural domestic sewage.
For this reason, the local area built two small sewage treatment stations in towns far away from the county seat, but their operating conditions were not satisfactory.
The reporter came to the river bank of a township with a small sewage treatment station and saw that many residents' domestic sewage was directly discharged into the river through the pipeline.
Some pipes are damaged, and sewage flows directly along the dam to the river bed, staining the brick walls black.
A staff member of the local environmental protection department introduced that although a new sewage treatment station was built in this township with the support of municipal and county-level finances in 2018, the construction cost of the supporting pipeline network is too high, and currently only close to half of the town’s population can be collected. The actual treatment capacity of domestic sewage is only half of the designed capacity.
To this end, the county's urban construction department built 20 water storage tanks along the local river bank to temporarily collect residents' domestic sewage, and then transport it to the nearby sewage treatment station by sewage collection trucks for treatment.
A staff member said frankly, "The processing capacity of the treatment station is limited, and there are often problems with water pumps and other equipment. Many times there is no time to pull the water, and the water from the storage tank overflows, which also causes the sewage to flow directly into the river."
Gande County, Guoluo Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture in Qinghai Province is located in the source area of the Three Rivers, close to the source of the Yellow River.
The reporter saw at the Gande County Sewage Treatment Plant that the conventional open-air sewage aeration tank was housed in a steel shed.
Walking into the steel shed, it is obvious that the indoor temperature has increased.
"There is no way, the temperature here is low, and the microorganisms in the sewage treatment are easy to freeze to death. You can only install the aeration tank indoors and burn the boiler to keep warm." The relevant person in charge of the sewage treatment plant said that the Gande County sewage treatment plant is more than 4,000 meters above sea level. , The temperature in winter is low, so it must be insulated by the outer steel shed and the internal burning boiler.
"The annual cost of burning coal in the boiler alone is about 250,000 yuan, which is a considerable expense." The person in charge said that the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is sparsely populated and the temperature difference between day and night is large, which makes sewage treatment difficult and construction and operation costs. high.
More urgently, the Gande County Wastewater Treatment Plant, which has a total investment of more than 20 million yuan, mainly treats domestic wastewater from residential communities, office buildings and shops in the county.
At present, the daily processing capacity is 1,200 tons, which has been operating at full capacity, and it is urgently needed to expand the processing capacity.
The construction and operation costs are high and the burden is heavy, and some sewage treatment plants shut down and become septic tanks
The reporter visited and found that the main reasons why some underdeveloped areas in the middle and upper reaches of the Yellow River "have sewage treatment plants and still have difficulty in sewage treatment" are the high construction cost of sewage collection pipelines and the heavy burden of sewage treatment operations.
In particular, many underdeveloped counties have just been lifted out of poverty and have limited financial resources and cannot afford the construction and operation costs of "full collection and full treatment" of sewage.
In Yongjing County, Linxia Hui Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, there was no sewage treatment plant in the county seat more than ten years ago, and domestic sewage was treated in a septic tank and discharged directly to the Yellow River.
In recent years, with the completion of sewage treatment plants and pipeline networks, more than 85% of the sewage in urban areas can be collected, but it is still difficult to cover all areas such as the urban-rural junction.
“The construction cost of the pipe network is about 1 million yuan per kilometer. Especially in the old city, there are problems of aging pipe network and mixed rain and sewage. The cost of laying a new pipe network is very high." said Wang Xiaoming, a cadre of the Yongjing County Housing and Construction Bureau.
With the acceleration of urbanization and relocation of poverty alleviation, the number of residents in counties and cities has increased, and the discharge of sewage has increased, and sewage treatment plants must also be expanded.
Although local financial resources are limited, under the huge pressure of ecological and environmental protection, the expansion of sewage treatment plants in "debt" has become a common choice in many underdeveloped regions.
According to Gao Chuncheng, director of Xinmin Wastewater Treatment Plant in Linxian County, Luliang City, Shanxi Province, due to the increase in the number of people living in cities and towns, the original equipment processing capacity is lagging behind. Therefore, the existing waste water treatment plant will be expanded in 2020. If it is insufficient, we can only start work first, and then think of a solution later."
At the same time, due to the relatively low population density and low sewage concentration in the underdeveloped areas in the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River, coupled with the influence of low temperature and other factors, the cost of sewage treatment is much higher than that in the eastern developed areas.
Some sewage treatment plants have to guarantee normal operation and have to put in glucose every day.
Li Shukun, director of the sewage treatment plant in Yanguoxia Town, Yongjing County, said that the town has a small population and the sewage plant mainly relies on residents' domestic water.
The low COD concentration of the influent water leads to insufficient carbon sources when the microorganisms treat sewage. The only way to ensure that the microorganisms are not "starved to death" by adding glucose, "three or four tons of glucose are added every month, which directly raises the treatment cost."
The reporter learned from an interview that there are currently 14 county sewage treatment plants in Qinghai Province located in high-altitude areas, and problems such as low sewage concentration, low treatment efficiency, low collection rate, and insufficient rain and sewage diversion are common.
In addition, the low temperature in winter in the Sanjiangyuan region brings great challenges to the sewage treatment process. Generally, heating sheds and heating are required. Some sewage treatment costs as much as 4 yuan per ton.
In Xinyi Town, Lishi District, Luliang City, Shanxi Province, the completed sewage treatment plant had to be shut down due to the inability to bear the subsequent operating costs.
According to Wang Sanniu, deputy mayor of Xinyi Town, after the completion of the sewage treatment plant, governments at all levels did not follow up to guarantee operating funds, and the town government alone could not afford this cost.
"Some sewage treatment plants were built early, and the treated sewage cannot meet the existing discharge standards. Without funds for equipment upgrades, they can only be used as septic tanks now," Wang Sanniu said frankly.
Sewage treatment can’t be “managed and run regardless of operation”
The construction has capital investment from the superior, and the operation is guaranteed by the financial investment at the same level. The high operating costs of sewage treatment plants have made many sewage treatment plants "unbearable."
In April 2020, Gande County, Qinghai Province, which was alleviated from poverty, had a county-level fiscal revenue of 16.74 million yuan in 2019.
The county pays 1.5 million yuan in sewage treatment fees every year, accounting for nearly one-tenth of the fiscal revenue of this level in 2019.
Some grass-roots interviewees urged that many underdeveloped areas that have just taken off their hats are in ecologically fragile areas, with great pressure on ecological protection and tight local financial operations.
In view of the actual financial situation in these areas, the construction of sewage treatment plants and daily operations require national policy support.
On the one hand, the investment in the construction of the sewage treatment plant itself is only 10 to 20 million yuan, and the local supporting funds only cost 2 to 4 million yuan, which can only be used for local fiscal revenue and expenditure, and in many cases local governments can only default.
It is recommended that the state lower the proportion of funds in these underdeveloped and development-restricted areas to facilitate the expansion and construction of related sewage treatment and collection projects.
On the other hand, urbanization in many underdeveloped areas is still in its infancy, and many areas have not yet established a charging mechanism for tap water, garbage treatment, and domestic sewage. The operating costs of sewage treatment are completely pressured on local financial expenditures, so PPP cannot be adopted. Construction.
It is eager to change the situation of “management and construction regardless of operation” of national special funds and grant certain operating funds subsidies to alleviate local financial pressure.
Improving the mechanism of timely detection, timely collection, and timely treatment of sewage direct discharge is also an urgent need to make up for the shortcomings.
Cadre Gao Guoping, deputy director of the Linxian Branch of the Ecological Environment Bureau of Luliang City, Shanxi Province, suggested that a comprehensive investigation of sewage outlets, the installation of video surveillance equipment in key areas, and the use of drones for real-time monitoring, while insisting on combining scientific and technological means with artificial means , Intensify manual inspections to ensure that domestic sewage is treated accordingly, and to prevent direct and sneak discharge.
“For the towns and villages that do not have industrial enterprises and are close to the urban pipe network, the production of rural domestic sewage is limited. It is recommended to adopt the method of decentralized construction of reservoirs, and reduce treatment costs through centralized pulling and transportation.” Ecological environment of Tianshui City, Gansu Province Deputy Director Wang Chaobo suggested.
(Reporters Lv Mengqi, Xie Yuan, Li Jinfeng, Li Zhanyi, Zhang Yujie)