The Story Of Tai Lake

William Wan: ZHOUTIE, CHINA -- You smell the lake before you see it, an overwhelming stench like rotten eggs mixed with manure.

The visuals are just as bad, the shore caked with toxic blue-green algae. Out further, where the algae is more diluted but equally fueled by pollution, it swirls with the currents, a vast network of green tendrils across the surface of Tai Lake.

Such pollution problems are now widespread in China after three decades of unbridled economic growth. But what's surprising about Tai Lake is the money and attention that's been spent on the problem and how little either has accomplished. Some of the country's highest-ranking leaders, including Premier Wen Jiaobao, have declared it a national priority. Millions of dollars have been poured into the cleanup.

And yet, the lake is still a mess. The water remains undrinkable, the fish nearly gone, the fetid smell lingering over villages.