Crime boss invokes coal mining alibi
Alleged Kunming gang leader Shen Chao (沈超) started his criminal trial yesterday in a Kunming court along with 32 other members of his gang, according to a Kunming Information Hub report.

Shen stands accused of committing a number of serious crimes between 2006 and 2009, including organizing illegal gambling, leading a criminal gang, possession of an illegal firearm, and murder.

The story quotes Shen as denying the crimes by explaining that he was, "too busy investing in coal mines in Zhaotong to commit the crimes."

The trial is expected to conclude today.

Kunming bombards clouds with no result
Kunming meteorologists fired 40 cloud seeding rockets from March 9 to 10 in an attempt to draw rainfall from the clouds covering the city earlier this week.

A Kunming Information Hub article on the operation reports that a light drizzle did fall in some areas around the city, but that the maximum recorded rainfall was just 0.7 millimeters.

As Yunnan's worst drought on record intensifies, government officials are under increasing pressure to appear to be taking action to address the widespread water shortages, crop failures, and wildfires that have been a result of the drought.

According to the article, as of March 9, 3,326 rockets and 3,019 shells had been fired in cloud seeding operations in southwestern China. There has been no mention of what substances are being used, although silver iodide is widely used around the world.

Kunming has an average annual rainfall of 1,040 millimeters, but the total for 2009 was just 571 millimeters.

Water management official commits suicide
The drought in Yunnan appears to have claimed its first fatality – Chinese media is reporting that a water management official in Lufeng county jumped from his office window on March 3, apparently due to mounting work pressures.

In addition to dealing with the drought, Lufeng water management bureau director Li Jianrong (李建荣) was also coping with the aftermath of a magnitude 5.1 earthquake that struck the area on February 25.

Li's colleagues told reporters that he was facing enormous work pressure from addressing both the drought and the earthquake.

Yuxi fights fire with fire
Last week, firefighters in Yuxi used their "long-range intelligent forest fire extinguishing system" (远距智能森林灭火系统) for the first time, according to a Yunnan Info Daily report.

The system consists of a truck-mounted launcher that fires rockets filled with an unspecified fire-extinguishing substance. It is intended to keep firefighters out of harm's way and fight fires on steep hillsides that are difficult to access on foot.

According to the report, firefighters were initially planning on firing rockets at a mountaintop where a forest fire was encroaching on high-voltage power line towers, but were seemingly foiled because they were afraid of destroying the very power lines that they were trying to protect.

Several hours later in another area firefighters succeeded in firing ten rockets at a fire burning near a highway.

As Yunnan continues to suffer from the worst drought on record there have been a large number of forest fires across the province. Kunming alone reported 81 forest fires between November 10 of last year and February 7 of this year.

Cloud seeding in Yunnan
Kunming Information Hub is reporting that the rain and snow that fell last week across Shangri-La County, Deqin County and Weixi Lisu Nationality Autonomous County were artificially triggered.

During the drought, the Yunnan government has been occasionally claiming that snow and rain in the province were artificially triggered, but such claims are difficult to prove because the precipitation may have occurred anyway without human intervention.

CCTV has an interesting video of cloud seeding in action in Qujing.

Water shortage continues
Water is selling for 100 yuan a cubic meter, or 10 yuan a liter, in some parts of Yunnan according to an article in Kunming Information Hub.

Fear of water shortages has prompted the Qujing government to shut down businesses such as car washes and saunas that rely on intensive use of water. Additionally, Kunming has raised its fines for businesses discovered to be wasting water.

Images: Yunnan Info Daily (rocket), CCTV (cloud seeding)

As a result of the drought currently parching Yunnan, the reservoirs surrounding Kunming are becoming lower by the day. Those reservoirs provide most of Kunming's water and once they are empty there is little chance of replenishment until the rainy season starts, hopefully, in late May.

The specter of Kunming's taps suddenly running dry conjures many images for those of us who live here. Particularly stomach-turning to a resident of the Green Lake area must be the thought of resorting to the final source of water in the neighborhood: Green Lake itself.

In fact, during a cleaner and simpler time in Kunming's history a large number of residents did get their water from Green Lake.

GoKunming recently visited the two-room "History Museum of Kunming Water Supply" (昆明市自来水历史博物馆). The museum is inside present-day Green Lake Park, and is housed in the building that once pumped 1,000 cubic meters of water daily from Green Lake's spring-fed Nine Dragon Pond (九龙池) and along a 9.5 kilometer network of municipal water pipes.

The pump station was completed in 1917 and started operating in 1918. It continued to be used until 1957.

The current museum still contains what appear to be the two original French-made electric water pumps, along with a small collection of old photos and other curios, such as tokens that could be used to buy water from any of the more than 50 public water taps that were part of the system.

The museum is located inside the park's east gate, which is actually located in the southeast of the park. Visitors walking through the gate will see the museum about 100 meters directly ahead of them.

Entry to the museum is free and it is open Wednesday through Sunday from 9:30am to 4:30pm.

Yunnan drought damage intensifying
The rain and snow that fell across northern Yunnan last week was not nearly enough to relieve the record drought that has left Yunnan with countless water shortages, forest fires, and failed crops. Government projections now have the drought lasting into early summer.

Estimates now stand at almost six million people and 3.6 million livestock in Yunnan lacking normal access to water—including 1.8 million people in the Kunming area alone—along with 2.5 million hectares of cropland affected. The number of people lacking normal access to drinking water could rise to nearly eight million in March without further rain.

The drought is now also affecting shipping traffic on the Mekong River.

After years of Chinese civil engineering projects such as dredging channels and blasting shoals, the upper Mekong River, known in Yunnan as the Lancang River, has become a major freight conduit between China, Laos, and Thailand, carrying oil shipments and other cargo up and down the river.

Reuters is reporting that the river is at half of its usual level for this time of year and China has halted the operation of 21 Chinese boats and stopped issuing border crossing permits to cargo boats seeking to enter China from the south.

Additionally, the drought has hit Yunnan and neighboring Guangxi's sugar farmers hard, leading to a 12 percent decrease in national sugar production for this growing season compared to last year. This development could drive up national prices if China begins to import more sugar.

Kunming apartment rents rising fast
If it seems that your landlord is trying to bleed you dry when you re-sign your lease this year, you might take consolation in the fact that other renters across Kunming are being similarly squeezed.

According to a Xinhua Net article, rental prices for small-sized family dwellings in the downtown area have increased by 10 to 15 percent in recent weeks as a surge of outside workers return to Kunming from Spring Festival vacations and a new crop of college graduates begins to flood the rental market.

The increase comes on the heels of rising prices last year.

Viewing China's stimulus package through Chenggong
A Financial Times article that appeared on Sunday used the example of Kunming's Chenggong new area to examine whether rapid development, China's economic stimulus package, and property speculation have caused a national property bubble.

The article focuses on the breakneck pace of residential construction in Chenggong, which for the moment is home to row upon row of mostly uninhabited apartment blocks and other buildings.

Kunming, however, has a rapidly growing population and very little space remaining around the original city center. With government offices and universities preparing to relocate there, it is difficult to imagine Chenggong remaining a ghost town for long.

Image: Sina News

A pilot project using a type of invasive water hyacinth species to reverse the process of eutrophication that has led to large-scale algae outbreaks in Dianchi Lake will launch today at the lake's southern end.

A Kunming Information Hub story reported that the project will experiment with controlled growing of the prolific aquatic plant to filter nitrogen and phosphorus out of the lake and create a source of biomass that can be used as fertilizer or to produce methane gas for generating electricity.

Dianchi's water quality is currently ranked class V, meaning it is unfit for human consumption or even agricultural or industrial use.

So far 6.7 hectares of water hyacinth have been planted and a processing factory constructed near the southern end of Dianchi in Jinning County. The hyacinth growing area is slated to eventually grow to 67 hectares.

Water hyacinth is native to South America but has choked lakes around the world including, famously, Lake Victoria in Africa.

Water hyacinth was originally considered a threat to Dianchi because it could outcompete other species and choke the lake. But now that agricultural and residential runoff have created an overabundance of nitrogen and phosphorus in the lake, scientists are hoping the plant can absorb large amounts of those substances from the water.

The pilot project aims to develop better methods of mechanized harvesting and converting the plant into fertilizer or methane gas.

It is unclear if this project is part of any sort of larger comprehensive strategy for cleaning up the lake, on which 100 billion yuan (US$ 14.6 billion) is expected to be spent by the year 2020.

Image: Human Flower Project

The light sprinkling of rain that fell on Kunming yesterday did little to stem the record drought conditions in Yunnan that have led to widespread economic losses and water shortages.

Yunnan news outlets are reporting today that since July of last year the average rainfall across the province has been about 512 millimeters. This amount of rain is about 207 millimeters less than average—a shortfall of almost 30 percent.

During the same period, average air temperatures have been about 1.7 degrees Celsius higher than normal, leading to increased evaporation and further exacerbation of drought conditions.

In addition to record low rainfall, Yunnan is also experiencing record high temperatures, according to a Yunnan Net article about the drought.

According to today's reports, the Provincial Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters declared a level-two drought emergency yesterday—though it is not immediately clear how many levels of drought emergency exist. Additionally today, some China Mobile users received an SMS warning them of a drought "red alert".

The immediate result of the drought has been widespread lack of drinking water in areas that do not have developed municipal drinking water systems. Those threatened with drinking water shortages include more than half a million people living in the villages and towns surrounding Kunming. In addition, direct economic losses have been estimated at 272 million yuan (US$39.8 million), mostly in crop damages.

The provincial government is reported to have been dabbling in the murky science of cloud seeding, but yesterday's rain, which was strongest in the north and west of the province with the city of Tengchong receiving nine hours of sustained rainfall, was reported to be natural.

Other than increasing spending on emergency water distribution and stepping up efforts to prevent fires in the province's parched forests, it is unclear what more the provincial government can do other than wait and hope for a robust rainy season, which usually begins in late May to early June.

The Kunming weather report through the weekend calls for clear skies and temperatures in the low 20's Celsius.

Update: Kunming mayor Zhang Zulin announced on January 27 that the city government would release eight million yuan in emergency funding to provide relief for drought-stricken areas of Kunming. The money is intended to maintain access to drinking water and mitigate damage to the spring crop planting until the rainy season begins in late May.

Photo: New Meteorology Net

Caohai tunnel mishap
A piece of a tunnel that is being constructed under Dianchi's northern Caohai section appears to have fallen yesterday in the early morning hours. The incident is being called a "partial collapse" by local media and "a problem emerging from the concrete-pouring process" by a representative of the construction company involved. So far no casualties have been reported.

Local media, however, have been hampered in their efforts to report the story by an unwillingness of the construction company, Kunming Yuanding Construction and Development Company, to allow reporters into the scene.

Also, according to the Kunming Information Hub report, as of 1:00pm Monday afternoon, a staff member at the Municipal Work Safety Bureau was reported as saying that the bureau had yet to be notified of the incident, which is believed to have occurred around 20 minutes past midnight. Meanwhile, at the tunnel, workers were ordered to hold up a large tarp (pictured above) to block reporters from seeing or photographing the scene of the incident.

This is the second major construction accident that has been reported on this month, following the fatal collapse of a bridge on January 3 that was being constructed at the new Kunming Zhenghe International Airport.

The new tunnel, which is 2230 meters long and Yunnan's first underwater tunnel, will link the southwestern suburbs of Kunming to the Kun'an Expressway. It was expected to open in June of this year, though it is unclear if this incident will change that expectation.

Development threatens Kunming's water supply
Add another blow on top of reports of deteriorating water quality in Yunnan and water shortages in Kunming: new construction in and around Kunming is tainting municipal water sources and threatens to leave the city without enough safe drinking water.

In a story for the online news outlet Circle of Blue Water News, author J. Carl Ganter takes the example of the construction of the new Zhenghe International Airport in Kunming to show how Kunming's karst topography makes the city particularly vulnerable to disruptions to its water supply.

"Karst" refers to areas underlain by soluble bedrock—limestone in Kunming's case. Over time, falling rain washes carbon dioxide into the rock, creating carbonic acid, which in turn dissolves a series of underground tunnels and chambers. This means that in a Karst area water can travel long distances underground without undergoing any natural filtration processes.

The development of the new airport—slated to be China's fourth largest—has involved workers flattening huge areas of limestone karst. In turn, local researcher Liu Hong, of the Yunnan Institute of Geography has seen plummeting water quality and rocketing levels of sediment in the Qinglongdong spring, which supplies Kunming's municipal water system.

As development expands around Kunming, the same story is repeating itself in the many small springs and reservoirs upon which Kunming depends for drinking water.

Yunnan to draft low-carbon action plan
In a slightly more encouraging piece of environmental news, the Asian Development Bank is announcing that it has provided a US$400,000 grant to help the Yunnan government craft a plan to boost efficiency and curb emissions in the province.

With the province consuming energy equivalent to 76 million tons of coal in 2008, even a 1% savings in energy usage would result in a reduction of 1.5 millions tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

Image: Kunming Information Hub

Kunming's notoriously dreary rainy season was much shorter than usual this year, which translated to a greater number of sunny, blue-sky days. Few complained about the extra pleasant days at the time, but it appears the consequences are around the corner, according to a Dushi Shibao report.

According to the Yunnan Provincial Meteorological Bureau, from January 1 to November 15 of this year, average rainfall totaled 843.3 millimeters, or 233.5 millimeters less than the same period last year. It is the lowest average rainfall for the province on record.

Provincial meteorological officials speaking to local media yesterday said that Yunnan was in a state of drought. Furthermore, they said, although the current cold weather has reduced the chances of wildfires, the recent precipitation is nowhere near what is needed to bring the province out of drought.

In addition to less precipitation, this year has been warmer, with the average temperature across the province reaching 25.1 Celsius (77.1 Fahrenheit), 1.5 degrees higher than in 2008 – this is also a new record.

Due to the insufficient amount of water stored in reservoirs throughout the province, the period leading up to the rainy season in late spring next year is expected to be difficult for much of the province. Officials noted that although Kunming's Yunlong and Songhuaba reservoirs were lower than usual, city residents were in no danger of a water shortage, at least in 2010.

With regard to the current cold weather covering the province, a bureau spokesperson said that from tomorrow through Sunday, the province will experience another noticeable drop in temperatures. During this period, rain, sleet and snow are expected to fall upon much of the province, including Kunming.