China Has Big Pollution Problems – Lake Cleanup Price Set at $14.5 Billion

■ “China has announced a multibillion-dollar plan to clean up a severely polluted lake where an algae bloom forced the suspension of water supplies to millions of people this summer.”

■ “The $14.5 billion plan to clean up Lake Tai, in a densely populated area northwest of Shanghai, should take five years, said a statement dated Friday and posted on a government Web site of the nearby city of Taizhou.”

■ “The algae covered as much as one-third of the 930-square-mile lake, a popular tourist attraction that has become badly polluted as the Wuxi area developed into a center for manufacturing and high technology.”

■ “Environmental regulators say China's rivers and lakes are so polluted that tens of millions of people have no access to clean drinking water.”