Efforts to boost environmental protection in a bid to safeguard the sustainable economic development  of the country have taken another step forward,according to today's China Daily.

    Among the hurdles ahead, water quality supervision and sewage  treatment are given priority during the 10th Five-Year Plan  （2001-05） period as China takes steps to improve the condition of about 230,000 enterprises listed by the State Environmental  Protection Administration （SEPA） as key water pollution sources.

    Traditional water treatment uses potassium permanganate  and potassium dichromic acid, which in turn cause pollution  during the process.

    New technology, jointly developed by the Bluestar Water  Treatment Technology Co Ltd and Tsinghua University, is the  first in China that controls water quality using biochemical  principles.

    The technology is based on chemical oxygen demand （COD）, biochemcial oxygen demand （BOD） and total organic carbon （TOC） in the water.

    Low cost and quicker than previous technologies, it can  be used to replace products imported from Western countries.

    Currently, the technology has gained two national patents  and been installed in the State-level water quality automatic  supervision stations such as Chaohu Lake in East China's Anhui  Province and Songhuajiang River and Helongjiang River in Northeast  China's Heilongjiang Province and major pollution-discharging  sources.

    Jiang Hong, division chief of the science and technology  department of SEPA, said the technology has proved effective  in supervising pollutants in the water. But ways to detect heavy  metals and other pollutants in organic waste water still need  to be tapped.