In a village in the costal area of Dalian, Liaoning Province, many villagers complain that their drinking water has become bitter and astringent. A man surnamed Kong is one of them. His home is in the village, about 5,000 meters away from the seaside. He says he has been drinking groundwater from a deep well, which was drilled in the 1970s. It was good in the past, but now tastes bad.

 

　　Kong says there are more villagers suffering from mineral concretions in recent years. And he himself suffers from gallstone, kidney stone and urinary problems.

 

　　In another nearby village in the area, local farmers say they have given up using well water because irrigating the land with it damages the vegetables they grow.

 

　　"Look at these cucumbers, eggplants and hot peppers. They are all dead after being irrigated with well water."

 

　　Many local farmers say the damaging situation is caused by seawater intrusion. Wang Tao, deputy director of the local water resources bureau says seawater intrusion is the movement of saline water into freshwater aquifers, which leads to the contamination of drinking water sources.

 

　　Wang Tao adds Dalian is a city severely suffering from a drinking water shortage. Over-use of groundwater has caused seawater intrusion.

 

　　"Over-use of ground water in costal areas will lower the groundwater level to below sea level, thus bringing seawater into the fresh water sources."

 

　　Based on statistics by the local water resources authority, the total area suffering from seawater intrusion in Dalian is as high as 650 square kilometers.

 

　　According to the water resources administration, the annual exploitation amount of groundwater in Dalian should be less than 200 million tons. However, the number has been at more than 300 million tons for many years in order to meet the demands of local agricultural and industrial development. Illegal exploitation of groundwater was not included into the data.

 

　　In Dalian illegal ads about well drilling are everywhere. When dialing a number on these ads, an illegal well driller will tell you this.

 

　　"Sure we do well drilling. But we can only do it pm Sunday night, or Saturday night. We can have it done quickly over night. But only on weekends because the water resources authorities are off work."

 

　　Currently, most customers for these illegal well drillers are construction sites, which have huge water consumption needs. It costs them only about 10,000 yuan to drill a well, which saves them several times less the cost of legal water.

 

　　Bi Dehua, department head of the local water resources bureau says they know illegal well drilling is flourishing in Dalian, but it's hard to crack down on it.

 

　　"We are not that capable of cracking down on these illegal well drillers because we have a limited number of staff in the bureau. Think about this: how large Dalian is, and we only have several dozens of employees in the administration so it's hard to manage the whole area well."

 

　　Local authorities in Dalian say they are making plans to decrease the exploitation of groundwater so that seawater intrusion can be controlled.

 

　　For CRI, I am Zhang Wan.