A government fund of 75 million yuan (US$11 million) will be in place this year to treat salinization of China's largest inland fresh water lake of Bagrax (Bosten) in northwestern Xinjiang.

The regional government said the biological restoration plan for the lake will take years of efforts.

Xinjiang started to treat the salinization of the 972-sq km lake in 2006, when more than 487 million tons of untreated agricultural, industrial and household waste water carried more than 700,000 tons of salt into the lake a year.

The pollution discharge has endangered the key water source in the arid Xinjiang.

Four waste water processing works were built by the lake with a loan of 4.95 million euros from the Austrian government and the local government funding from 2006 to 2008.

The regional government has planned to continue to return cultivated farm land to grassland and reeds wetland in the comprehensive biological restoration of the lake.

(Xinhua News Agency January 28, 2009)