Inspectors outline checks on cotton farm water use

NURZHAN — ISEZ water inspectors yesterday described the checks they apply to farms supplying the Xinjiang Lihua cotton plants, as farmers' groups renewed their concerns about cotton growing in a summer of low water in the Chu and Talas basins.

At a briefing in Nurzhan, officials said that withdrawals by the farms that supply the company's gins are monitored by the Chu Valley Irrigation Inspectorate, and cotton deliveries to the plants by the Chui Cotton Inspection Directorate. They said that inspectors compare deliveries with the area each farm is licensed to irrigate, and that farms exceeding their summer quotas face the same penalties as other water users.

Xinjiang Lihua Co. this year completed the second stage of its purchase of ginning concessions and a former Soviet spinning mill near Nurzhan, which it has re-equipped. Cotton is the most water-intensive crop in Irad. Farmers' groups and environmental researchers have asked whether cotton grown for the plants will comply with water regulations, and what it will mean for the depletion of the Chu and Talas basins in dry years. The company says its spinning complex recycles its process water.

The briefing came as summer quotas set by the inspectorate forced other large water users in the lower Chu to cut back. Zhetysu Industrial Textiles in Nurzhan has reduced shifts for several weeks. Last Sunday parishes across the ISEZ offered prayers for rain at the request of the Episcopal Synod.