How Did Qingdao Clean Up The Ulva Prolifera For The Olympic Games 2008

To Relieve Olympic Sailing Races, China Fights Algae

A barge at Qingdao, site of the Olympic sailing regatta in August, was surrounded by algae last week. The Chinese have begun a huge cleanup effort.

Credit... EyePress, via Associated Press

July one, 2008

BEIJING — With less than six weeks earlier it plays host to the Olympic sailing regatta, the metropolis of Qingdao, China, has mobilized thousands of people and an armada of minor boats to clean up an algal flower choking the coastline and threatening to impede the competition.

Local officials have begun an intense endeavor to clean upwardly the algae past mid-July. News reports estimate as many equally 20,000 people have either volunteered or been ordered to participate in the operation, while i,000 boats are scooping algae out of the Yellowish Sea. The country'due south official news agency, Xinhua, reported that algae currently comprehend a third of the littoral waters designated for the Olympic competition.

H2o quality has been a concern for the Olympic sailing events. Many coastal Chinese cities dump untreated sewage into the ocean, and rivers and tributaries emptying into coastal waters are often contaminated with loftier levels of nitrates from agricultural and industrial runoff. These nitrates contribute to the cherry-red tides of algae that ofttimes bloom forth sections of Prc's coastline.

Only officials in Qingdao said in recent days that pollution and poor water quality did not have a "substantial link" to the current outbreak, according to Xinhua. Instead, scientists blamed the increased rainfall and warmer waters in the Xanthous Sea for the blossom. Algae blooms at present affect more than 5,000 square miles of seawater, Xinhua reported.

"We will brand all our efforts to finish this job," said a propaganda official in Qingdao, who asked not to be named considering of the political delicacy of the issue. "Now, forces from the unabridged province have get involved." He said ships and boats have been dispatched from two other coastal cities, Rizhao and Yantai, to help haul away the algae.

Yuan Zhiping, an official with the Qingdao Olympic Sailing Commission, said Sunday that the government would effort to block algae from floating into the Olympic sailing surface area by installing in the body of water a fenced perimeter more than 30 miles long.

"I believe we will brand certain the Olympics sailing expanse is clean by July 15 through our efforts, and make sure the Olympics sailing goes smoothly," Mr. Yuan said, co-ordinate to the Shandong News Spider web site.

Photographs in the Chinese news media showed rickety wooden boats overflowing with greenish mounds of algae nerveless from the ocean. I photo showed a young male child crouched on a beach beside piles of the leafy glop equally a dump truck carried off a big load of it. State news outlets reported that 100,000 tons of algae had already been taken out of the water. Much of it was beingness transported to farms as feed for pigs and other animals, according to news reports.

Residents of Qingdao and its environs, where about seven million people live, have been anticipating the city's Olympic moment for years. 1 local newspaper reported that 11,000 higher students had volunteered for cleanup duty over the weekend. Several companies had organized teams of employees to help.

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The massive outbreak comes with some sailing teams already in Qingdao preparing for the Olympics. Photographs in the Australian news media showed an Australian team seemingly stuck in a carpet of algae during a preparation run.

In British news media, a British windsurfer who has been training in Qingdao, Bryony Shaw, said the algae would be an upshot if the waters were not cleaned up. "There's no way y'all tin can sail through information technology," she said. "If it'due south however here in Baronial, it could be a existent trouble."

Qingdao'southward situation is another challenge for Beijing's Olympic organizers, who have committed to delivering a clean and healthy surround for the Olympics.

Air quality remains a serious business organisation in Beijing. On Tuesday, the city will begin removing 300,000 high-polluting vehicles, mostly trucks, from local roads. Later in July, the city will institute temporary restrictions to remove half of all motor vehicles from the streets.

Simply air quality remains such a large problem that officials are also preparing contingency plans that could strength factories across much of northern People's republic of china to shut temporarily if weather warrant.