Hejiachi, the second largest lake, is dying out in "protection".

Hejiachi in Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province has a history of thousands of years. For it, 20 or 30 years is but an instant, but in this moment, its fate has changed sharply: part of the lake has been turned into land, and mud, dregs and fields have "dismembered" it.

Hejiachi was once the second largest lake in Shaoxing. In the "Chinese Lake name Code" issued by the Ministry of Water Resources in 1998, its area is 3750 mu, which is larger than another lake Jianhu in Zhejiang Province.

When the lake code was released, villagers near Hejiachi had been damming the lake for more than a decade. They pumped water, dug earth to make bricks, and quickly divided the lake into several deep pits. By 2014, the total surface area will be less than 700 mu.

In the 2017 version of the comprehensive management plan of Hejiachi waters, roads and farmland appeared on the original lake, which was opposed by some surrounding villagers.

Dakeng has become a "gold mine" for many people. They pour mud, fill dregs, build roads, and even plan to build 1000 mu of land in exchange for indicators of urban and rural construction land-however, most of the land that has been exchanged for urban and rural construction land and financial subsidies has not been put into use at present; in the 40 mu of land where wheat is planted, weeds are higher than wheat.

In the view of the interviewed government officials, part of the land in Hejiachi is no longer water surface, and it is precisely because the "identity" of the lake is not all a lake, so there is no problem with dumping mud, filling soil, and making land. As for the road through the lake, it is of great benefit to the local economic development. "the government has attached great importance to the Hejiachi governance plan."

The deep pit separates the lake.

Hejiachi is 15 kilometers east of Shaoxing city. After the river flows through this place, it merges northward into the Qiantang River and then runs to Hangzhou Bay.

Shaoxing municipal government website is proud of the introduction of Hejiachi. It is said that he Jiachi may be related to the Tang Dynasty poet he Zhizhang, the lake is the same, the west bank is Lu Xun's grandmother's home, the famous novel "Social Opera" is based on this background.

The lake, which is regarded as the business card of Shaoxing, reached a turning point of fate in 1985. A number of villagers around told reporters that they were building dams here and built a number of intensive fish ponds. Since then, the lake is no longer linked together, and the picture of boating and fishing is gone forever.

Over the next decade, most of the fish ponds were drained, and later people dug earth here to make bricks. "dig the earth and dig a big hole." At that time, a head of the brick factory recalled, "the deepest pit was about 30 meters, and then the pit was dug to 380 mu."

Satellite maps show that by 2013, brick factories and deep pits in the lake had been scattered, and Shaoxing's second largest lake had been "dismembered."

The water conservancy regulation function of Hejiachi is also greatly damaged. Villagers said that in the past, the water network around Hejiachi was vertical and horizontal, and the Shaoxing Plain was high in the south and low in the north. Once it rained, the upstream water would flow from south to north, and Hejiachi played a powerful regulation and storage function with its huge capacity. When Typhoon Fitt hit in 2013, due to the loss of Hejiachi, a flood storage barrier, many nearby rice fields were flooded and people's homes were flooded for four days.

2014 is even worse. Planning materials show that at that time, the total area of brick factories and pits was 1966 mu, and the water area was only 729mu, and enterprises built golf courses and racecourse at the bottom of the lake, totaling 616mu.

Villager Shao Linjie is waiting for a connecting flight. In her mind, Hejiachi is a "mother lake". There are all kinds of fish and shrimp in the lake, helping her family through the years of material shortage. "I have feelings for the lake, and I want to save her."

In March 2015, after more than half a year of research, the Shaoxing Municipal Government approved the "Hejiachi Water Environment Comprehensive treatment Plan". Two years later, the plan was optimized again. "the municipal government has attached great importance to it." A local official commented.

At that time, Zhejiang Province was launching the "five-water co-governance" project (that is, "controlling sewage, preventing floods, draining water, protecting water supply, and saving water"-- reporter's note), and the upsurge of water control was sweeping the water villages in the south of the Yangtze River. He Jiachi seems to have caught the last straw, but Shao Linjie soon found that the government's direction of governance was different from what she had envisioned.

In her view and some villagers, Hejiachi should put an end to the pattern of "princes' separatist regime", divert water into the pit and try its best to restore the state it was before 1985.

A water conservancy researcher who knows the situation in Hejiachi believes that this practice has "no technical difficulty"-the water level outside Hejiachi is higher, so as long as the river bank built that year is dug through, the water will flow in naturally, "without spending too much money."

Another advantage of completely "reviving the lake" is that Hejiachi can irrigate, flood control, and precipitate some pollutants from the upstream, reducing pollution in the downstream waters.

A person in charge of the Shaoxing Water Resources Bureau also told the reporter frankly: "in good conscience, this lake (if continuous), at least under the current situation, is really good for the ecological improvement of Shaoxing as a whole."

But an extra road was added to the approved plan, dividing the lake in two. Some of the existing brick factories and deep pits have been restored into water areas, while others have been marked as yellow and green squares. These squares occupy about 1/3 of the original area of Hejiachi, a total of 1053 mu, and the planning plan explains that this large area is a "reclamation area."

Villagers who want to "restore the lake" are confused: the so-called "reclamation area" was all water before 1985. "if there has never been farmland, how can there be reclamation?"

Land indicators that refuse to give up

In fact, before the comprehensive management of Hejiachi was put on the government's agenda, these "reclamation areas" had already sprouted in the lake.

According to officials, the purpose of reclamation is to achieve a "balance between occupation and compensation", that is, how much construction land is used, how much arable land has to be reclaimed. The index of construction land obtained in this way is an important source of land for urban development in China.

In December 2012, Hejiachi ushered in the first reclamation area in its thousand-year history, and for two consecutive years, with the approval of the Land Department of Zhejiang Province, another reclamation project has been settled in Hejiachi.

"isn't this reclaiming land from a lake?" Several villagers went to the government department. Shao Linjie said that the state calls for returning farmland to the lake, and laws such as the Water Law of the people's Republic of China explicitly prohibit the reclamation of land from the lake. "how can Hejiachi be reversed?"

An official of the Shaoxing Water Resources Bureau explained to the reporter that although Hejiachi used to be on the water surface, the nature of the land has since been changed to mining land, residential land, and so on. "if the land is restored to the water surface, the land department will investigate it instead."

"the development of Shaoxing needs overall planning." The official said that this could not be regarded as reclaiming land around a lake.

The surface of the lake that has existed for thousands of years is not the surface of the water. Shao Linjie could not laugh or cry: "if a woman is given a male ID card, will she become a man?" Moreover, pumping and digging 30 years ago was already illegal. "Why was it acquiesced instead?"

The Hejiachi governance plan approved in 2015 has not shaken the existence of the reclamation area. The planning plan shows that in addition to the 424.5 mu reclamation area that has been approved that year, there are still 600 mu of reclaimed area in the lake waiting to be completed. These reclamation areas are all located in the brick factory and the deep pit dug in the original lake.

According to this plan, the water surface area of Hejiachi after restoration is about 1800 mu, which is less than half of that when the Chinese Lake name Code was released in 1998.

"the state proposes to keep the red line of 1.8 billion mu of arable land. If there is no arable land, there will be problems." An official in Shaoxing said that reclamation involves the issue of food. "We are also for the interests of the common people."

For the grass-roots government, reclamation is not only a task, but also a huge cake.

For example, Shangyu City, Shaoxing, where a reclamation project is located in Hejiachi, sent a message to the township government in 2011 that the land turnover indicators produced by the reclamation of abandoned industries and mines, such as abandoned kiln bases, were given a reward of 91000 yuan per mu. Once the project is approved, 50% of the incentive funds will be allocated as start-up funds.

As long as the surplus land turnover index of the project is "used by the municipal government as a whole", the subsidy for villages and towns will reach 100000 yuan per mu.

Behind the reward is the desire for construction land. In this southern water village of "seven mountains, two rivers and one division of land", land is a scarce resource in the urban development of Zhejiang Province. The aforementioned document also stated at the beginning that one of the purposes of this work is to "expand land use space" and "alleviate the shortage of land use indicators".

Keqiao District of Shaoxing City, where the other two reclamation projects are located, also supports the comprehensive renovation of rural land in various townships, giving incentives ranging from 10,000 yuan to 70,000 yuan per mu depending on the quality of cultivated land.

The significance of Hejiachi reclamation to Keqiao District is self-evident. Among the 42 reclamation projects in the region from 2012 to 2016, the two Hejiachi projects are among the top two, according to the land department.

Under the strong reaction of some villagers around Hejiachi, the Shaoxing municipal government adjusted the governance plan here this year.

The Shaoxing City Planning Bureau publicly explained that the new plan "respects history and combines the current situation, maximizes the return of farmland, land, and lakes," and connects internal and external water systems. After adjustment, Hejiachi added 650 mu of water surface, a total of 2460 mu of water surface-equivalent to 60% of the original water surface.

Shao Linjie found that the new plan shows that there are indeed a lot more blue areas on the water surface, and the four originally planned farmland have also been deleted.

But she soon realized that these reclaimed areas had not disappeared, but had only been transferred in the lake: reclaimed farmland roughly the same size as them had replaced the racecourse and golf courses at the bottom of the lake.

Continue to dump construction waste after changing the nature of the land

The area of reclaimed farmland is still set at 1000 mu-accounting for about 1/3 of the original water surface of Hejiachi. But this is not "reclamation" in the conventional sense.

Villager Zhang Shifu saw that trucks loaded with construction waste rushed to the "reclamation area". After paying the "dumping fee", drivers filled the garbage into the deep pit of Hejiachi.

In Shao Linjie's view, these dregs are undoubtedly another "dismemberment" of Hejiachi.

The reporter recently visited and found that in the original brick factories and pits in the lake, you can see rubbish every few steps, including red brick, steel bar, concrete, plastic bags, glass, and wooden stakes.

Shaoxing officials interviewed explained this with a logic similar to that before, reminding reporters that part of the land in Hejiachi is no longer surface in nature.

The official explained that many reclamation areas were originally at the bottom of the lake and deep pits, and they should first fill with construction waste as fillers, and then fill the soil as ploughing layer on this basis. "of course, harmful and toxic things cannot be filled out, as long as they are done according to the plan," he said. If there are problems, the regulatory authorities should be responsible.

Dumping construction waste in Hejiachi is nothing new. In May 2013, a village near the lake signed an agreement with a company to contract an area of 80 mu and 700000 cubic meters of Hejiachi for landfill construction dry soil for a period of two years. The village can get 1.7 million yuan.

At that time, Hejiachi became a paid garbage dump, and today, this situation continues.

What about the output of the "reclaimed" farmland in the lake? In a "sea of garbage" in the lake, the reporter found a reclaimed wheat field of about 40 mu. This is one of the few farmland in the lake that has been put into use, and several villagers have pointed out the anomalies.

According to the villagers interviewed, they often pass by here, but few people take care of it. A villager asked the family who contracted for the reclamation of the whole wheat field, and the other side said that the field did not need contract fees, water and electricity bills.

"it is May 21, 2017, and most of the wheat has been harvested nearby, but there is no wheat here yet." Zhang Shifu casually peeled off a few grains of wheat, "flat and empty." Looking ahead, there are many places in the field where more than a dozen meters are weeds, and the weeds are growing wildly in the field, which is taller than wheat.

On May 22, the contractor finally hired a harvester. According to him, the 40 mu of wheat fields have harvested less than 10,000 jin of wet wheat, which belongs to low yield. The harvester at the scene also complained for the family: "he doesn't make much money in this field."

The farmer admitted that this was the third time he had cultivated here, and when sowing, he could not plough it with a tractor. "there were rebars of 20 mm in diameter and the boss's stones in the field," and he had to spend 6000 yuan to find someone to remove the construction waste.

In this wheat field after harvest, steel bars and stones more than 10 centimeters long can still be seen everywhere.

"how can you grow wheat like this?" According to the analysis of several villagers, the land may only be reclaimed as required, so as to get farmland subsidies.

The construction waste dumped into Hejiachi contains not only dregs but also mud. On the west side of the lake, Shaoxing set up the Construction by-product Recycling Co., Ltd., controlled by the city's Water Group, in 2014, with a mud treatment fee of 40 yuan per cubic meter.

This is the only mud treatment site in Shaoxing city. the company said in a publicity board that they have a total investment of 6.5 million yuan to make bricks after mud treatment, turning waste into treasure, and the mud pool has a capacity of 800000 cubic meters.

The so-called mud pool is actually the deep pit on the west side of Hejiachi. This form of legal "invasion" was once again opposed by some villagers.

The new highway divides the lake into two.

The mud came to Hejiachi with the development of Shaoxing city.

A person in charge of the Shaoxing Water Conservancy Bureau told the reporter that there were historical reasons for choosing this place to concentrate the discharge of mud. "the discharge should take into account transportation, cost, and so on. The deep pit in Hejiachi was just available, and there was no other place in Shaoxing at that time."

"there is a problem of mud treatment all over the country." The person in charge said that Shaoxing is developing rapidly and mud is constantly being produced. If there is no centralized treatment point, a lot of mud will be stolen and discharged into the river, which will do more harm to the environment.

The mud treatment site was selected as Hejiachi in 2014, when all six brick factories in the lake were suspended. Since then, the co-heads of four brick factories, their sole proprietorship enterprises, have become the second largest shareholder of the aforementioned recycling company.

The government-led mud treatment has not cut off the source of pollution. The state-owned enterprise, which already has mud ponds, still stole 610000 square meters of mud into the largest pit in Hejiachi in the seven months from September 2016 to March this year-almost half of the minimum annual mud capacity of 1.5 million square meters claimed by the company's exhibition board.

After the Zhejiang media exposure, the head of the company said that the mud generated and sent by the urban construction of Shaoxing was more than 1 million square meters more than its annual processing capacity.

The momentum of urban expansion is like a sharp arrow at Hejiachi. The surrounding villagers saw that about 1500 meters of the east extension project of Qunxian Road in Shaoxing City passed through the original lake of Hejiachi, and the nearly 700m roadbed under construction was all solid. In the plan, only a 100-meter-long bridge is left near the center of the lake.

"for such a large lake, if it is really necessary to cross it, you can use a tunnel under it." According to the analysis of a water conservancy researcher, the direct landfill with a solid highway is equivalent to dividing the lake into two, which will destroy the overall ecology.

In the view of the Shaoxing officials interviewed, this road is of great significance and is conducive to connecting the three districts of Shaoxing and realizing the integrated development strategy. "if you want to get rich, you will build the road first, otherwise the three districts will not be connected."

A Zhejiang traffic scholar who is familiar with the road planning believes that the distance between the highway and the surrounding parallel lines is only one or two kilometers, which is "a bit of repetitive construction."

But Shaoxing's ambitions are not limited to highways. In the middle of the 60-meter-wide road through the lake, 11-meter-wide light rail is reserved, where Metro Line 2 will pass.

This project is having a profound impact on the future of Hejiachi. In the comprehensive management plan adjusted in 2017, the road through the lake will continue to be retained, but the bridge in the middle of the lake has been about doubled.

The mud treatment center was deleted from the new plan. At the beginning of this year, officials said that they planned to shut down and relocate the treatment center in two years' time. The factory was flat and covered with green, while the transfer pool was restored to water surface and wetland.

Zhang Shifu hopes that the center will be closed immediately, otherwise, at the rate of more than 1 million square meters of mud handling capacity each year, it will certainly "invade" other deep pits in the lake within two years, "otherwise the mud will spill out."

Some scholars feel sorry for he Jiachi. The water conservancy and ecologists interviewed admitted that the situation in Hejiachi is not alone. There are many lakes in the country that have shrunk due to the construction of roads and fields, and it is very difficult to restore the original ecology. "but 70 to 80 percent of the restoration can still be done."

For this great lake with historical and cultural background, some interviewees suggested that it would be better to "restore the lake" as far as possible, and then develop it into a tourist scenic spot, which can also develop the economy.

"A plan cannot simply be said to be bad or good, it should depend on whether the advantages outweigh the disadvantages or the disadvantages outweigh the advantages." An official of the Shaoxing Water Resources Bureau said that Hejiachi should be planned from the overall development of Shaoxing on the basis of history and reality. "from an outsider's point of view, the government has attached great importance to Hejiachi."