The difficulty of Water pollution Control in Rural areas to establish a Sustainable treatment Mechanism

In recent years, with the gradient transfer of rural population in China, a large number of rural population is concentrated in market towns and new villages. Compared with cities, rural sewage treatment facilities are seriously lagging behind, and water pollution problems in rural concentrated residential areas are increasingly prominent.

A few days ago, the State Council issued the Action Plan for Water Pollution Prevention and Control, which requires speeding up the comprehensive improvement of rural environment, implementing unified planning, construction and management of rural sewage treatment, and promoting the continuous treatment of rural environment.

The Outlook think tank recently learned from Chongqing, Jiangxi and other rural areas that some places are gradually promoting rural water pollution control and building small and medium-sized sewage treatment facilities in rural areas according to local conditions. However, during the investigation of the think tank, it was found that many difficulties, such as insufficient professionalism of sewage treatment facilities operated by grass-roots governments, uneven distribution of management and protection costs, poor promotion of new technologies, insufficient environmental protection supervision, etc., restricted the effect of rural water pollution control, and the sustainable treatment system of rural sewage needed to be improved urgently.

Promote rural water pollution control in many places

Yunyang County of Chongqing City is located in the hinterland of the Three Gorges Reservoir Area. There are more than 1300 villagers in Yongli Village, Bayang Town, Chongqing City. At the sewage treatment station in this residential area, the observation think tank saw that the water quality was obviously improved after aeration treatment and wetland filtration after sewage collection, with a daily treatment capacity of 50 tons.

Fan Shilun, a villager, said to the lookout think tank that in the past sewage was discharged directly to the stream behind the residential site. The stream was black and smelly, and fish and shrimp were extinct."Last year, sewage treatment stations were built here, and pipe networks connected every household. Now the stream is beginning to clear and crabs are also present. "

Yunyang County environmental protection bureau deputy director Li Jingchuan said, Rural water pollution sources are mainly domestic sewage, Livestock breeding, The county vigorously implement rural environment contiguous renovation, Invest 53.74 million yuan in 34 administrative villages and communities to build garbage, Sewage treatment facilities, Large-scale farms to implement total pollution reduction, Close or relocate breeding area farms, More than 70% of farm pollution has been controlled, Built city, County ecological villages 273.

In Chitian Town, Yichun City, Fengxin County, Jiangxi Province, a green giant oval tank can treat more than 300 tons of domestic sewage produced by nearly 8000 people in a day. This FMBR and oxygen membrane treatment technology realizes synchronous treatment of sewage and organic residual sludge.

Shuai Yimei, the village secretary of Luotang Village in the town, said that the sewage from the former market town was directly discharged into the fields. The sewage mixed with excrement, sludge and garbage made more than 120 mu of paddy field in the village seriously eutrophic and could not grow crops. The villagers petitioned for this many times. At present, the treated clean water can irrigate more than 300 mu of paddy field in the village.

In recent years, many provinces and cities have implemented continuous improvement of rural environment, among which water pollution control is the key content. In 2008, Chongqing launched a nationwide pilot project on overall urban and rural environmental protection and a demonstration of rural environmental renovation. Since 2013, Chongqing has listed rural environmental renovation as a key livelihood issue. It plans to complete the continuous renovation of 2000 villages by 2017, and implement the "three treatments and one guarantee" with rural domestic sewage, garbage, livestock and poultry breeding pollution control and rural drinking water source protection as the main contents.

According to the population of the town and residential area, sewage treatment facilities shall be built according to local conditions. Small-scale sewage treatment stations shall be built in areas with daily treatment capacity of more than 100 tons and located in environmentally sensitive areas or collecting tap water fees; for those with daily treatment capacity of less than 50 tons, small-scale artificial wetlands without power shall be built. The domestic sewage treatment rate of villages implementing this project shall reach 60%.

In order to adapt to the trend of rural water pollution concentrating in towns and villages, Jiangxi also plans to invest 200 million yuan. In accordance with the principle of "township main body, market operation, department guidance and financial subsidy," Jiangxi will comprehensively promote the construction of domestic sewage treatment facilities in the top 100 central towns in 2015 to realize the linkage between towns and villages to control rural water pollution problems. It is planned that by 2017, the sewage collection rate in towns will reach 80%, and the domestic sewage in towns will basically be effectively treated.

Although many places have strengthened efforts to control rural water pollution, the coverage of rural environmental protection facilities is very limited. Professor Xie Deti, dean of the School of Resources and Environment of Southwest University, said that rural sewage in China has been "self-produced and self-sold" for thousands of years. It is collected through self-built septic tanks and toilets. Finally, these sewage are turned into farmland fertilizer and reused. However, at present, a large number of people in rural areas have moved to market towns and are no longer engaged in agricultural activities, while most emerging market towns have not built sewage treatment facilities.

Of the 120 hundred central towns established in Jiangxi, only more than 30 have sewage treatment facilities. According to the monitoring of Jiangxi hydrological department in recent ten years, the overall water quality of Poyang Lake in dry season has decreased from Class I ~ III in the last century to Class III ~ IV now, and Class V water quality appears in some areas. The main pollutants are total nitrogen and total phosphorus. In addition to agricultural non-point source pollution, rural domestic sewage is the main "contributor."

Difficulties in the operation of sewage treatment facilities

The State Council recently issued the Action Plan for Water Pollution Prevention and Control, which clearly points out that comprehensive improvement of rural environment should be accelerated. Deepen the policy of "promoting governance through awards," implement rural cleaning projects, carry out river dredging and dredging, and promote the continuous improvement of rural environment. By 2020, 130,000 new villages will have completed comprehensive environmental improvement.

Experts said that the Water Pollution Prevention Action Plan will promote the improvement of rural environmental protection facilities, and the number of rural water treatment equipment will grow rapidly in the next few years. However, the interview with the lookout think tank found that the existing rural sewage treatment facilities are difficult to operate normally, and "easy to build but difficult to use" has become a common problem reflected at the grass-roots level.

First, the grass-roots government lacks professional technical support for the operation of environmental protection facilities. Outlook think tank learned that except for a few large-scale centralized sewage treatment facilities operated and managed by professional companies, most rural sewage treatment facilities were handed over to local township governments for operation and management after completion.

In Wanban Village, Baishi Town, Zhong County, Chongqing City, a small constructed wetland filters and discharges domestic sewage from residential areas. "The operation of sewage facilities is relatively professional. Plants in small constructed wetlands need to be harvested regularly and replaced after a few years. Sewage treatment stations with power still need professional technicians. Township-level governments lack technical support. "Zhong County Baishi Town Deputy Mayor Wang Tieniu said.

Second, the cost of management and protection is mainly borne by the grass roots, and the funds lack effective guarantee. Tang Zhiping, mayor of Bajing Town, Gaoan City, Jiangxi Province, told the lookout think tank that most of the management and operation costs of sewage treatment facilities need to be solved by grass-roots governments themselves, which is a heavy financial burden for rural areas with low economic development level.

Outlook think tank learned from Chongqing City Environmental Protection Bureau, In addition to a few areas with better financial resources will rural environmental protection facilities operation into the financial budget, Most districts and counties adopt appropriate financial subsidies, Collect part of villagers sewage and garbage disposal fees, The rest adopt township self-financing way. According to a grass-roots cadre in Yunyang County, sewage treatment stations need labor, electricity, pipe network maintenance and other costs to invest at least 50,000 yuan a year.

There are about 150 rural environmental improvement projects including sewage treatment in Yunyang County. The county subsidizes 5000 yuan to 10,000 yuan for each project. The pressure on township operation funds is very high. Many rural towns and residential areas do not use tap water, so it is difficult to collect sewage treatment fees from villagers alone.

Wan Dan, director of Yongli Village in Yunyang County, said that sewage treatment fees could not be collected basically. Garbage disposal fees were charged by each villager for 5 yuan, and only a few hundred yuan a month. Zhong County Maguan town deputy mayor Wu Zongli said, The town a year garbage, Sewage and other sanitation fees can collect about 100,000 yuan, Fund gap more than 400,000 yuan.

Third, it is difficult to popularize new sewage treatment technologies. Gong Yong, director of Science and Technology Standards Division of Environmental Protection Department of Jiangxi Province, said that in previous years, traditional sewage treatment technologies such as oxidation pond and oxidation ditch were promoted everywhere. Although the investment in equipment in the early stage was relatively small, problems such as maintenance cost consumption and secondary pollution were gradually exposed in the later stage. In recent years, the newly developed technology has low comprehensive operation cost and good treatment effect, but the equipment investment is high, and it is not easy to popularize.

The FMBR and oxygen membrane treatment technology independently developed by Jiangxi Jindalai Environmental Protection Co., Ltd. has been patented in many countries and has been used for sewage treatment in peacekeeping camps. Tao Kun, the person in charge of the company, pointed out that at present, there are many environmental protection enterprises engaged in water environmental treatment, but not many have core technologies. Some enterprises with poor technology are keen to compete at low prices in the market, often ignoring the later services.

During the survey of the Outlook think tank, it was found that most rural sewage treatment facilities did not install online monitoring equipment due to cost reasons. In addition, they were widely distributed and far away, so it was difficult for environmental protection departments to carry out normal monitoring. The sewage treated by some facilities still did not meet the standard.

Chongqing City Fengdu County Shuanglu Town Huayuan Village, Mingshan Street Gujiadian Village residential areas have built small non-powered artificial wetlands, looking at the think tank to see, these two artificial wetlands due to poor plant growth, the discharged water is still turbid black. Li Yongming, chief of the comprehensive section of Fengdu County Environmental Protection Bureau, said that after the plants grow well, the sewage can only reach the comprehensive discharge standard after better filtration.

Xie Deti said that if the management of rural water pollution treatment facilities is not in place, nutrients will increase and more water pollutants will be discharged. At present, some rural garbage and sewage treatment facilities have been left unattended due to insufficient funds and poor operation mechanism, and many facilities have become furnishings and secondary pollution sources.

Establishment of sustainable disposal mechanisms

Some grass-roots cadres worry that with the promotion of continuous improvement of rural environment, more and more pollution control projects will be carried out, and it will be difficult for villages and towns to guarantee operating funds. Some environmental protection projects have no land use index, and the approval procedures for obtaining land use index are long, so they have to rent farmers 'land for construction, and there are difficulties in project site selection; some landless farmers hinder project construction because they require higher compensation.

Grass-roots environmental protection personnel said that villages and towns used to be very enthusiastic about building rural environmental protection facilities, but now some villages and towns are unwilling to build them.

Interviewed industry insiders believe that rural sewage treatment should be steadily promoted by stages and batches. First of all, it is necessary to guarantee the construction and operation and maintenance costs, and gradually explore a reasonable sewage treatment fee collection mechanism. Zhu Lehui, a professor at the School of Environmental and Chemical Engineering of Nanchang University, believes that if the construction and operation and maintenance costs are not solved, the facilities may be idle after completion and become a "sunbathing" project.

He suggested that, on the one hand, we should strengthen the support of provincial finance and subsidize according to the treatment effect; on the other hand, we should actively explore the establishment of a mechanism for collecting township domestic sewage treatment fees and solve the problem of cost sources through multiple channels.

Secondly, it is necessary to clarify the main body of responsibility for construction and management, and enhance the participation of farmers and village collectives. Clearly take the central town as the main body responsible for the construction and operation of sewage treatment facilities, encourage qualified areas to adopt the mode of professional company operation management and government purchase of services, and gradually realize "service specialization, operation marketization and management property".

Zhou Ning, director of Chongqing Leshan Environmental Protection Technology Co., Ltd. specializing in sewage treatment, believes that the government should further open up the sewage treatment market, hire a third party to improve the efficiency of rural water pollution prevention and control by purchasing services, and local environmental protection and construction departments should play a supervisory, guiding and normative role.

Dr. Liu Pingyang, Department of Environmental Science and Engineering, Fudan University, believes that to break the dilemma of long-term management and operation of rural domestic sewage, we should fully mobilize the enthusiasm of farmers and village collective organizations as polluters and beneficiaries of sewage treatment, and truly regard domestic sewage treatment as a matter closely related to their own interests.

In addition, it is necessary to explore sewage treatment modes suitable for rural areas, focusing on promoting environmentally friendly and "fool" treatment technologies.

Song Qianwu, a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Environmental Sciences, believes that the sewage problems in rural areas and small towns cannot be solved simply by using the methods used to solve urban sewage collection and treatment problems. The sewage treatment technology suitable for new urbanization and rural areas must be environmentally friendly and simple to manage, and at the same time improve the resource utilization rate of rural sewage. The treated water can be used for irrigation and fertilization.