China's Coal Thirst Strains Its Water Supplies

The Wulanmulun River once ran through Daliuta, a town in China’s northern Shaanxi province. All that remains of the waterway today is a pond, which locals say is contaminated by waste from the world’s biggest underground coal mine. Environmentalists also contend that mining is sapping the area’s groundwater supplies. “I worry about the water,” says Zhe Mancang, the 58-year-old owner of a liquor store in town. “But my family’s here, and my customers are from the mines.”

Daliuta is the epicenter of a looming collision between China’s scarce supplies of water and heavy reliance on coal, which diverts millions of liters a day for its extraction and cleaning. “You can’t reconcile targets for coal production in, say, Shaanxi province and Inner Mongolia with their water targets,” says Charles Yonts, head of sustainable research at brokerage CLSA Asia-Pacific Markets in Hong Kong.