Mei Jinsong checks the working status of wasterwater treatment equipment at a wastewater treatment plant in Shazhenxi Township of Zigui County, central China's Hubei Province, Sept. 5, 2011.
Mei Jinsong's job is quite simple at the Shazhenxi Wastewater Treatment Station in Shazhenxi Township, Zigui County.
Every two hours, he would go inspecting the working status of water treatment equipment and record data on water quality monitors.
Sometimes, the 36-year old would take a sample of wastewater manually just for a close check on water quality.
Mei's working place is one of the six wastewater treatment stations in Zigui County. To keep the Yangtze clean, the local government has spent a fortune setting up wastewater treatment stations in every township located in the Three Gorges Reservoir.
Life, however, is not so easy as Mei Jinsong's job at the 12-million-yuan wastewater treatment station.
Mei lives with his jobless wife off some 700 yuan he earns every month, while a kilogram of pork costs more than 20 yuan on the street.
As many of his colleague quit because of the meagre salary, he wondered whether to follow suit.
"Maybe it's time to find a better-paid job," Mei said in an unsure tone.
For ages, the Chinese suffered from the flood-prone Yangtze. For ages, the Chinese strived to tame the unforgiving waters.
A water control project at the Three Gorges area was envisaged as early as 1918 by Dr. Sun Yat-sen, forerunner of China's democratic revolution in the early 20th century, but was shelved due to technical obstacles and social turbulence until Communist leader Mao Zedong proposed a dam and reservoir at the Three Gorges area in the 1950s.
It was hoped, in a poem penned by Chairman Mao in 1956, that "walls of stone will stand upstream to the west", from which "a smooth lake" would arise in "the narrow gorges".
Since then, China had kicked off preparation for harnessing the Yangtze and constructing the Three Gorges project.
A great amount of work in investigations, feasibility studies, tests and examinations, had been done with the participation of thousands of experts from China and abroad. A small dam was even built in the middle and upper reaches of the Yangtze River as a trial-and-error project.
After protracted debates and researches for around half a century, the plan to build a dam for flood control and power generation was approved in 1992 and the construction of the Three Gorges project, whose main components include the dam, a five-tier ship lock, and 26 hydropower turbo-generators, began one year after.
Completed in 2006, the Three Gorges Dam run at full capacity in 2008 for the first time as water levels at the 185-meter-deep dam reached 175 meters.
In a statement issued in May 2011, the State Council, or China's cabinet, admitted that the Three Gorges project had caused some problems ranging from resident relocation to geological hazards while bringing "great and comprehensive benefits".
But life still carries on. People, millions of them, are making their little but valuable contribution towards the success of the world's largest water control and hydroelectric project. (Xinhua/Liu Jinhai)
