Another 1.26 million residents in the Pudong New Area will benefit from the city's water quality-improvement project at Qingcaosha Reservoir this September, after new pipelines and other support facilities there are completed, said the project's builder yesterday.

Qingcaosha Reservoir. [jfdaily]?

Chengtou Group, the state-owned local construction firm, said the building of the pipeline system in the southern part of Pudong was in full swing and would be finished by September to enable supply of higher-quality tap water sourced from Qingcaosha, a 17 billion (US$2.7 billion) yuan project at the mouth of the Yangtze River.

The reservoir started functioning in December 2010 and its service has provided water service for about 11 million locals, mostly in downtown districts and part of Pudong.

The southern Pudong program will complete the last phase to expand service coverage of the reservoir. For the 1.26 million residents in the area, it means they will no longer suffer a shortage of quality tap water in peak seasons and will benefit from much-improved quality.

The southern Pudong residents now rely on inland rivers, such as the Dazhi River, which are exposed to higher contamination risks and provide an unstable daily water supply.

The builder is facing challenges in its construction because many of its pipelines will run past densely packed village and townhouse compounds. A project manager said yesterday that they were closely studying possible land subsidence impacts to the houses above the route and will work to mitigate any potential problems.

"We will try our best to avoid disturbing residents and curb subsidence," the manager said.

The group also said its construction of two vehicle tunnels to connect both banks of the Huangpu River were proceeding smoothly and should open to traffic next year. The Changjiang Road W and Hongmei Road S river tunnels will substantially relieve the current traffic pressure on the Outer Ring Road Tunnel and also help divert the heavy traffic flows in the Xinzhuang area, the construction company said.