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The water quality of China's biggest river -- the Yangtze -- has not been worsened by the ongoing Three Gorges Dam project, thanks to effective pollution-control measures, according to Chinese environmental authorities.

The massive project on the middle section of the Yangtze will eventually form a huge artificial lake as the water from the river 's upper reaches and tributaries is blocked by the dam.

The project, begun in 1993, has aroused concern that the reservoir water could be polluted if cities and towns around the reservoir area, including Chongqing Municipality, which is home to 15 million people, fail to treat enormous amounts of industrial pollutants and pour them directly into the river.

However, an official with the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), said here recently that the water quality of the mainstream and tributaries of the Yangtze "is good," though certain degrees of pollution caused by heavy metals such as lead occur during the flood seasons.

An ecological and environmental surveillance network for the Three Gorges project found that the general condition of the local natural ecosystem remained unchanged last year, and construction of the dam did not influence the water quality, said Zhu Guangyao, deputy director of the SEPA.

He attributed this to effective control of industrial pollution in the reservoir area.

"Key industrial pollution sources were reduced by 37 last year, and the pollution load was lowered," he said.

The remaining 60 key industrial pollution sources in the reservoir area discharged 108 million tons of waste water, 15.6 percent less than that in 2000, he said.

Meanwhile, ships on the Yangtze are required to treat waste water in order to avoid pollution of the river by garbage and waste fuel.

The SEPA has launched a 10-year program for water pollution control in the Three Gorges Reservoir area, aiming to maintain the water quality at a satisfactory level through various measures, such as establishing disposal facilities and controlling soil erosion.

The program, covering more than 270 counties in five provinces, will cost 40 billion yuan (about 4.8 billion U.S. dollars) when it is finished by 2010.