A plan by the Shenzhen Municipal Water Resources Bureau to raise sewage treatment fees has aroused heated debate centered around the price increase for residents and the cost of treating sewage.

Residential fee will rise from 0.5 yuan (US$0.06) per ton to 0.95 yuan per ton. The price for industrial use will increase from 0.6 yuan to 1.05 yuan, while the fee for commercial use will rise from 0.7 yuan per ton to 1.15 yuan.

“Our sewage treatment efficiency is high compared with other cities, but our costs are expected to rise because of the increasing volume of sewage and the construction of new sewage (treatment) plants,” said He Pei, vice director general of the bureau at Wednesday’s public hearing.

His opinion was supported by a veteran urban planning engineer Lu Pinxiang.

“Objectively speaking, it will take at least 10 billion yuan to improve the city’s sewage situation. Shenzhen’s sewage treatment system is already efficient and advanced,” said Lu, who claimed that the current treatment fee percentage of salary was too low to encourage people to save water resources.

The bureau said the increase would not affect residents and enterprises much.

However, a retired principal Bo Zhongxin expressed his disagreement.

“While it’s O.K. to raise the fee for commercial use, it is unfair to raise the fee for residents because their sewage discharge is due to daily life,” he said.

The recycled use of water was also mentioned at the hearing.

Lu Jun from the Shenzhen Economic Daily pointed out that the bureau should think more about using recycling to reduce costs instead of increasing charges.

Several representatives questioned how to invest such a large sum of sewage treatment money in a reasonable way.

“We need a transparent environment such as the public release of auditing reports and independent people to monitor the use of money,” said Ma Hong from a local company.

(Shenzhen Daily/Agencies March 24, 2005)