The key to improving water quality, he noted, was to reduce pollution sources. So far, 50 sewage plants and more than 40 garbage disposal plants have been built around the dam areas at the cost of 39.2 billion yuan ($5.3 billion).
Li Yong'an said that the Three Gorges dam was functioning well in combating floods and drought this year. "The Three Gorges dam could only affect the climate within an area less than 10 kilometers around it and the temperature of no more than one degree centigrade," he said, replying to criticism that the project was responsible for Chongqing's severe floods this year and drought last year.
The latest statement from the Office of the Three Gorges Project Committee of the State Council said that power generating units at the dam had turned out a total of 200 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity so far since July 2003, and had provided power supply for energy-thirsty southern and eastern China as well as central China.
Wang also confirmed that the relocation of another four million people from Chongqing did not concern the Three Gorges Dam but was part of plans for local industrial restructuring and labor transformation.
