China's Olympic Dream Turns into Real Nightmare -- Olympic nightmare: A red tide in the Yellow Sea / IHT

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Residents clearing the coastline of Qingdao, Shandong province on Monday. (Stringer/Reuters)

International Herald Tribune

Olympic nightmare: A red tide in the Yellow Sea

By Jim Yardley
Monday, June 30, 2008

BEIJING: With less than six weeks before it plays host to the Olympic sailing regatta, the city of
Qingdao has mobilized thousands of people and an armada of small boats to clean up an algae bloom
that is choking large stretches of the coastline and threatening to impede the Olympic competition.

Local officials have initiated an all-out effort to clean up the algae by mid-July. Media reports
estimate that as many as 20,000 people have either volunteered or been ordered to participate in the
operation, while 1,000 boats are scooping algae out of the Yellow Sea. The official news agency,
Xinhua, reported that algae currently covered a third of the coastal waters designated for the
Olympic races.

Water quality has been a concern for the sailing events, given that many coastal Chinese cities dump
untreated sewage into the sea. At the same time, rivers and tributaries emptying into coastal waters
are often contaminated with high levels of nitrates from agricultural and industrial runoff. These
nitrates contribute to the red tides of algae that often bloom along sections of China's coastline.