China has decided to launch a campaign to fight pollution in the Songhua River in Heilongjiang Province, local government sources said on Thursday.

Urgent measures will be taken to treat the causes of water pollution in the river, said Liu Xueliang, vice governor of the province.

The campaign will focus on monitoring new construction projects including local chemical plants, paper mills, metal smelters, and highways, Liu said.

Projects failing to meet pollution-control standards will be suspended or closed and the owners punished.

Central and local governments have invested 7.75 billion yuan (about US$1 billion) into 116 pollution control projects in the region since 2006, including building waste water treatment plants and setting up a remote sensing system to monitor water pollution.

The 1,900-km-long Songhua River originates in Jilin and its wasters are used to irrigate 545,600 sq km of farmland in northeast China. It is a tributary of the Heilong River, known as the Amur River after it flows into Russia.

There have been frequent reports of pollution in the river and its tributaries in recent months.

Ten tons of toxic chemicals were dumped into Songhua's tributary Mangniu River in Jilin by two truck drivers from Changbaishan Jingxi Chemical Company last August.

In November 2005, about 100 tons of polluted waste containing benzene spilled into the Songhua River after a chemical plant explosion in Jilin. The incident forced cities along the river, including Heilongjiang's provincial capital Harbin, to temporarily cut water supplies to 3.8 million people.
 
(Xinhua News Agency April 13, 2007)