Where does rural domestic sewage go? ——Survey on the phenomenon of "obstruction" in rural sewage treatment

In a village in a coastal city in North China, the inspection team found that at the junction of the drainage canal on the west side of the village and the Baoqiu River, a channel about 60 meters long and 8 meters wide was blocked by dumped garbage, and the canal has become a veritable name. "Garbage Waterway" (photo taken on November 28). Xinhua News Agency

In the vast rural areas of our country, domestic sewage disposal has always been a prominent shortcoming in the improvement of human settlements. The reporter recently followed the State Council's Rural Human Settlements Inspection Team to conduct on-site inspections in many places across the country and found that some villages and towns have serious problems with black and odorous water bodies, and illegal discharge of sewage from small workshops and livestock and poultry breeding in some villages and towns occurs from time to time, and sewage treatment is not synchronized with rural toilets. Problems such as direct discharge of a large amount of sewage need to be solved urgently.

Rural sewage is discharged directly in many places, causing shocking environmental pollution

On a small bridge in a village in a province on the southeast coast, a giant propaganda board with the words "well-off is not well-off, the key is to look at fellow villagers" is very eye-catching. However, in the place blocked by the billboard, a large amount of domestic garbage such as plastic bags, cans, and instant noodle boxes floated on the water surface, and the water body was dark brown.

This small river called Xingou passes through the village, and many villagers live by the river. Several villagers reported: "The river is foul smelling. Affected by the drought this year, the water flow is slow and the pollution is more serious than in previous years. Some sewers are directly connected to the river, and the feces are washed out." Walking along the Xingou River, The inspection team saw that due to the low water level, a large number of sewer pipes that drained straight into the river were exposed.

In a village in a coastal city in North China, the inspection team found that at the junction of the drainage canal on the west side of the village and the Baoqiu River, a channel about 60 meters long and 8 meters wide was blocked by dumped garbage, and the canal has become a veritable name. "Garbage Waterway". In the village's northeast canal and river chief's signboard, domestic sewage was directly discharged. Green moss and white foam floated on the water surface, exuding a pungent stench.

The reporter combed and found that in some densely populated villages and towns near urban areas, the black and odorous water bodies of rivers were more prominent. The inspection team found that a village in the Pearl River Delta was densely populated, and the two rivers in the village were crowded with construction waste and domestic waste all year round. In addition, there was no sewage collection facility built in the local area, and the domestic sewage of the nearby residents was discharged directly into the river all the year round, causing serious pollution.

In the countryside a little far from the urban area, illegal discharge of sewage such as small workshops in some illegal villages and towns has occurred from time to time. The inspection team found that in a village under the jurisdiction of a city along the river in a province in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, phosphorus slag from a phosphate mine tailings pond accumulated all year round, and when it rained, a white "sewage ditch" was formed. During a field inspection in a village in the northern suburbs of a mega city in North China, the inspection team found that the village's "black laundry workshops" illegally discharged sewage and polluted the environment.

In a village under the jurisdiction of a city along the river in a province in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, phosphorus slag from a phosphate mine tailings pond accumulates all year round. When it rains, a white "sewage ditch" is formed (photo taken on November 27). Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Hou Wenkun

Old and new problems are intertwined, restricting the effectiveness of rural sewage treatment

The reporter followed the inspection team and found that the problems of sewage treatment in suburban and remote rural areas are different, but the bottom line is that sewage has not been effectively collected.

——After the toilet reform, where to go to the toilet sewage becomes a new problem. After the flush toilets are built, villagers will be troubled by where the sewage goes. A sub-district of a coastal city in North China has completed the renovation of 33,000 rural household toilets, but 22 sewage treatment stations are still undergoing pre-construction preparations. The reporter visited many villages in the area with the inspection team and found that many farmers have built septic tanks, but most of the villagers said that they still find a special person to extract the sewage from the septic tanks as before. "There is no suitable place to dispose of manure, so it has to be dumped into farmland and ditches far away from the village."

Several inspection teams found that in some places, rural latrine improvement and sewage treatment were not considered as a whole or the progress was inconsistent, resulting in insufficient connection between latrine improvement and sewage treatment, and the septic tank outlet still discharged directly into the environment.

——In the suburbs and rural areas of cities and towns, the "last mile" bottleneck of the sewage collection pipe network has not yet been broken through. The inspection team visited the urban-rural junctions of many cities in the Pearl River Delta and found that many rural households have basically completed the construction of flush toilets spontaneously. In some areas, the “supervisory network” for sewage collection has basically taken shape, but the “capillary network” extending from the main pipeline to farmers’ homes has not yet been established, resulting in farmers’ homes still draining into rivers and polluting the environment.

——In the countryside a little far from the urban area, there is a phenomenon of “emphasizing construction and neglecting operation” in sewage treatment facilities. The inspection team found that in 2016, a village in the southeastern coastal province commissioned a professional company to design and build a set of rural domestic sewage treatment facilities with multi-stage anaerobic and constructed wetlands to treat the domestic sewage of 56 households in the village. However, the sewage treatment facility is currently out of service, and the constructed wetland is overgrown with weeds, completely losing its purification effect. According to the person in charge of the village, due to insufficient funding for operation and maintenance, there is no financial resource to hire professionals to manage and maintain sewage treatment facilities.

In a village in a province along the southeast coast, the water body of the small river in the village is dark brown, and a large amount of domestic garbage floats on the water surface (photographed on November 27). Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Yan Hongxin

Adapting measures to local conditions to ensure effective sewage collection

The relevant documents of the central government propose that the treatment of domestic sewage in rural areas will be promoted step by step, and the treatment rate of domestic sewage in rural areas in the eastern region and the suburbs of central and western cities will be significantly improved; in the central and western regions with a good foundation and basic conditions, the random discharge of domestic sewage will be controlled. .

In response to the problems of rural domestic sewage found by the inspection team, the inspected places all expressed that they would accept the problems found by the inspection team in a comprehensive manner, implement immediate reforms, and resolutely make comprehensive rectifications in place.

The inspection team suggested that rural sewage treatment methods should be adapted to local conditions. Villages close to cities and towns with better economic conditions can be connected to the urban sewage treatment system through the pipe network; villages farther away from towns and with more concentrated populations can build centralized sewage treatment systems. Treatment facilities; for ordinary villages, three-format sewage treatment facilities can be built or biological treatment methods can be adopted.

A number of grass-roots cadres said that the black and odorous water bodies in rural areas are also the "hard bones" of rural domestic sewage disposal, and the masses have responded most strongly. It is necessary to strengthen key rectification and take multiple measures to attack and rectify. In addition, the current rural sewage treatment funds mainly come from financial support, which is basically the government's backing. It is recommended to explore a diversified fund-raising mechanism, give play to the role of government investment leverage, guide and encourage social capital to participate in rural sewage treatment, and improve the efficiency of fund use. (Source: Xinhuanet)