Chongqing, the biggest and most important industrial city on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, says it will spend 430 million yuan in harnessing pollution caused by plying ships and boats from the year 2006 through to 2010.

During the 11th five-year-plan period (2006-2010), the municipal government will have been executing a campaign designed to target flowing pollution --sewage from daily life, oil-tainted water and solid trash -- brought along by ships and boats passing by, said a spokesman from the municipal commission of communications.

"All newly built ships should discharge according to required standards, while old boats are required to undergo technical overhaul so that the discharge of carbon dioxide and hydrocarbon by the old boats would be lowered drastically to meet the standard for discharging before the year 2010, " said the spokesman.

"Operators who fail to meet the standard for discharge will not allowed to ply into the Three Gorges Reservoir and violators will be punished severely," said the spokesman.

In the meantime, the city will also build bases for cabin washing for ships carrying chemical and dangerous goods at the city proper of Chongqing, Wanzhou and Fuling, two lower-level cities inside Chongqing.

Chongqing sits at the upper stream end of a huge reservoir formed behind the Three Gorges Dam, the world's biggest water control facility. Each year, more than 100,000 ships and boats ply to and fro in the Three Gorges Reservoir, of which, 30,000 navigate and stop by Chongqing.

An estimate given the local environmental protection department shows that passing ships and boats leave behind 42,000 tons of trash, 7 million manure, 15 million tons of sewage, alongside more than 1 million tons of oil-tainted water each year.

(Xinhua News Agency May 14, 2007)