Local officials said Thursday the potable water supply is enough in the southern cities of Guangzhou, Foshan and Yingde, despite a water crisis caused by smeltery waste.

The toxic slick, resultant from excessive cadmium discharges from a smelting works in Shaoguan city on Dec. 15, has polluted the Beijiang River in Guangdong province.

The downstream cities of Guangzhou and Foshan have launched emergency plans to ensure safe drinking water supplies to their residents as a toxic slick approaches.

Besides Beijiang, Guangzhou, provincial capital of Guangdong with a population of over 10 million, also use water from the rivers of Dongjiang and Liuxi, said an official with the city's work team to deal with the water crisis, who declined to give his name.

"Only one waterworks sources from Beijiang in Guangzhou. Even if it is closed, the daily water supply will be little affected," said the official.

However, he noted, Guangzhou has ordered all its waterworks to increase storage and prepared backup bottled water and water carriers.

The urban district of Yingde city, which is about 90 km from Shaoguan, began tapping water from a nearby reservoir through a 1.4-km-long water pipe linking the city's waterworks and the reservoir that was built on early Thursday morning.

The city has stopped taking water from Beijiang River since Wednesday night. The reservoir can provide up to 48,000 tons of water by the pipe daily, which is enough for the use of 100,000 residents in the district, according to local government.

Local environmental protection units found in a state-owned smeltery in Shaoguan that the excessive discharge of waste has made the volume of cadmium in the river section of Shaoguan surge nearly 10 times above the safety standard, "seriously affecting" the water safety in the river's lower reaches.

The smeltery has halted operation and closed the waste water outlet blamed for excessive discharge, according to the environment protection office of Shaoguan City.

Guangdong has set up 20 monitoring posts along the river to keep a close watch on the water quality.

The density of cadmium kept dropping after local governments began diluting the polluted water by increasing the discharge of the water of reservoirs at Beijiang's upper reaches, according to environmental protection experts.

Experts forecasted that the diluted water will likely not threaten the drinking water source for Foshan and Guangzhou. Nevertheless, the two cities have been asked to start emergency plans to ensure safe drinking water.

Cadmium is a soft, bluish-white metallic element occurring primarily in zinc, copper, and lead ores, that is easily cut with a knife and is used in low-friction, fatigue-resistant alloys, solders, dental amalgams, nickel-cadmium storage batteries, nuclear reactor shields, and in rustproof electroplating.

Editor: Yan