A joint investigation team was established overnight in Xuzhou's Tongshan District after a national television program exposed serious malfunctions in rural sewage treatment projects across several regions, including parts of Jiangsu and Shanxi provinces. The report highlighted issues such as idle equipment, sewage backflow, and millions of yuan in construction costs being wasted, turning projects intended to benefit villagers into sources of daily frustration for residents.

In response to the broadcast, authorities in Jiangsu Province and Xuzhou City have moved quickly to address the situation. Officials in Tongshan District have formed a multi-department task force comprising the local ecology and environment bureau, water affairs department, and agriculture and rural affairs bureau. By the evening of September 13, investigative personnel had already arrived at the affected sites to begin their work on rectification and corrective measures, according to a statement obtained from the district government.

The joint investigation team has pledged to handle the matter in accordance with laws and regulations once its findings are complete, and it will remain open to public oversight throughout the process.

Equipment Left Running Without Wastewater

In the village of Yezhuang, located in Tongshan District, reporters found that the sewage treatment station had been operating in an idle state for years. The village, home to just over thirty households, generates only a small amount of daily wastewater. Inspections of multiple manholes revealed minimal sewage accumulation, with water largely stagnant and some well openings littered with household trash. At the discharge point roughly a hundred meters from the treatment station, the outflow was barely a trickle, according to the investigation.

Local maintenance workers confirmed that due to the low resident population and limited sewage output, the pipe network struggled to collect any meaningful volume of wastewater. Rather than shutting down, the station’s operators were found to be using pre-existing water stored in the tanks to keep the equipment running continuously, a practice that has persisted for years. Workers calculated that the station consumes about 5 kilowatt-hours of electricity per day under normal operation, but a staggering 10 kilowatt-hours per day while idling, resulting in an annual waste of more than 3,600 kilowatt-hours.

Similar findings emerged in other villages across Tongshan, including Luzhuang, Wafang, and Shangzhoulou, where treatment stations were kept powered on despite receiving almost no wastewater, with both collection and terminal discharge volumes remaining extremely low.

Sewage Backflow Adds to Villagers' Woes

In Shiduan Village, also in Tongshan District, residents reported that the treatment facilities not only failed to process sewage but frequently caused wastewater to overflow and back up into their homes. Even on sunny days, sewage could be seen seeping from manholes, prompting some villagers to seal the openings with cement to reduce the stench and curb overflow—yet the leakage persisted. When reporters opened a manhole, they found black, foul-smelling sewage at a depth of approximately two meters, significantly higher than the level of household drainage pipes.

This high water level created back-pressure that blocked household wastewater from entering the public network, while sewage from the pipes flowed back into homes. Left with no other option, villagers diverted their wastewater directly into open ditches, effectively defeating the purpose of the centralized treatment system. Additionally, the road surfaces above the sewage pipes were found to be uneven and cracked, with villagers attributing the damage to poor construction quality. An excavation at one site revealed that the underground pipes were surrounded by raw earth rather than the sand or gravel typically used for proper backfilling.

Millions in Projects Left Unused, Yet Fees Still Charged

In Dongshan Village, residents said the sewage facilities were unable to collect or treat wastewater at all, forcing them to discharge household waste directly into a nearby river and pond. On-site inspections showed the pond surface covered with duckweed and garbage, its water severely blackened and emitting a noticeable odor. Most households in the village lack proper drainage pipelines, leading to indiscriminate sewage discharge.

Public records indicate that in 2020, Tongshan District invested 65 million yuan in pipe network improvements across nine administrative villages and sewage treatment coverage for fifteen others. Dongshan Village was included in the 2020–2021 expansion phase, with a village-level treatment station built at a fiscal cost of 1.91 million yuan. The station was designed to handle wastewater from toilets, septic tanks, bathing areas, kitchens, and laundry facilities, along with supporting household connection pipes. According to national guidelines, pipe routing and facility siting should be determined with input from multiple departments and villager representatives, but residents say they were never consulted during the construction phase. The treatment station was built, yet the supporting collection network for the entire village was never delivered.

Without such a network, sewage could not reach the station. To maintain the appearance of normal operation and pass inspections, project personnel resorted to using tanker trucks to draw water from the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, pouring it into village pipes and manholes to ensure the station had “wastewater” to process each day, as villagers recounted.

Adding to their frustration, villagers discovered that a sewage treatment fee had been added to their tap water bills. According to the officially published rural tap water price standards for Tongshan District, residents must pay 0.35 yuan per ton for sewage treatment. Mobile phone billing statements show the new fee has been charged since March 2025. Staff at the Maocun Water Supply Service Station acknowledged the charge, stating that the fee is collected and transferred to higher authorities, leaving the water company without explanation for the levy.

The investigation remains ongoing, and authorities have yet to announce detailed outcomes or further actions.