Oil boom threatens city’s water

Almost a century after becoming the site of China’s first land-based oil well in 1907, northwest China’s Yan’an City is facing a water crisis caused by its booming oil industry. The city on the Loess Plateau was the base of the Chinese revolution for 13 years, but now it battles to keep its water reserves uncontaminated by the thousands of nearby oil wells and pipelines.

Yan’an is belying its reputation as a poor, desert city. It has benefited from the country’s development and large-scale oil production to become the second largest economy in Shaanxi Province after Xi’an.

The increasing amounts of water used in the oil industry and for agricultural irrigation and urban domestic use has led to falling levels in the city’s rivers, particularly the main Yan River, and deteriorating water quality.
The city’s sole source of drinking water, Wangyao Reservoir, lies 65 kilometers northwest. The NPC team recorded eight oil plants, 1,133 oil wells and nearly 300 kilometers of oil pipelines within the reservoir valley, posing serious pollution risks.

A more serious problem exists in the Yan River basin, which has 26,000 wells and more than 800 kilometers of pipelines. Its water quality once dropped below class V, unsuitable even for agricultural irrigation.

China Daily