Continuous Improvement of Sewage Treatment in China’s Chongqing

Chongqing- A press conference on the interpretation of Chongqing's No. 3 River Chief Decree was held by the Information Office of Chongqing Municipal People’s Government on Tuesday.

The Yangtze River (Photo provided to iChongqing)

Sewage pipe network

Urban domestic sewage treatment is of great concern for people. Dong Yong, the spokesman and Deputy Director-General of the Chongqing Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, said that Chongqing will continue to deepen the construction of facilities to enhance weak links and improve the quality and efficiency of sewage treatment during the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-2025).

Dong continued reinforcing urban domestic sewage through four specific aspects: improving the job security system, strengthening weak links in the pipeline network, enhancing sewage treatment capability, and optimizing the operation and maintenance management.

Among them, the sewage collection rate will be completely increased. Specifically, the sewage pipeline network will be constructed and transformed more than 5,500 kilometers, achieving a stable BOD of urban sewage treatment, which facilities above 100mg/L.

Furthermore, it is also planned to promote the expansion and upgrading of sewage treatment with high standards, making it possible to increase the urban sewage treatment capacity by more than 1.2 million tons/day and improve sewage treatment capacity's resilience.

"Meanwhile, we will be committed to the construction of water-recycling facilities to promote pilot and demonstration projects for the use of reclaimed water," said Dong. This is to realize the utilization rate of regenerated water of more than 15%.

Through establishing an intelligent drainage management and sewage treatment facility intelligent operation system, the Chongqing Municipal Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development aims to increase the guarantee for the operation and maintenance of the drainage network.

By optimizing the sewage treatment process, the establishment of normalized safety operation inspection and management mechanism is also needed to strengthen the supervision of sewage treatment fee collection and the operation of treatment facilities.

Green Healthy Aquaculture

The treatment of aquaculture tailwater also serves as one of the significant parts of the River Chief system.

According to Hong Guowei, Chief Agronomist of Chongqing Municipal Agriculture and Rural Committee, Chongqing has finished 44% of the whole task for direct drainage aquaculture tail water treatment. Their next step is to regulate aquaculture and tailwater management.

(Du Min, as an intern, also contributed to this report.)