Subsidies were fraudulently claimed, rural domestic sewage treatment "fake project": sewage wells became decorations

The central government has always listed rural domestic sewage treatment as a key task in many policies such as beautiful countryside construction and rural human settlement environment improvement. Filling the gap in rural domestic sewage treatment is also one of the livelihood issues that rural people most hope to improve. However, recently, "Financial Investigation" received feedback from some people that the rural domestic sewage treatment project in their village cannot be used normally and is a "tofu dregs" project or a "half-finished" project.

In Liujia Community, Shangma Street, Chengyang District, Qingdao City, villagers told reporters that the domestic sewage treatment project in the village was just a "showpiece" and the septic tanks and sewage pipes in front of and behind the houses were not connected at all.

A villager told the reporter that now, on average, every two months, he has to pay for a septic tank truck to clean up the sewage. Otherwise, he and his neighbors can't live normally. And as soon as it rains heavily, the sewage in the septic tanks of every household will overflow into the streets, and the filth and stench will fill the streets, which is very annoying for the villagers.

The reporter found that only one meter away from the septic tank of this villager's home was a sewage well built by the government. Since there was a sewage well, why couldn't the sewage be discharged?

After opening the sewage well, the reporter was surprised to find that the pipe, which was supposed to be connected to the septic tank, was clean and dry, with no signs of sewage discharge, and there was only a small amount of water in the sewage well.

On one side, there is a septic tank in a villager's home that is about to overflow, and on the other side, the pipes connecting the septic tank in the sewage well are "not a drop of water coming in." The reporter checked many sewage wells in Liujia Community and found basically no trace of sewage. In most sewage wells, the pipes are so clear that you can even see the bottom.

The reporter checked the official website of Chengyang District, Qingdao City and found that in 2022, Shangma Street invested a total of 90 million yuan to build seven communities including Liujia Community into beautiful rural demonstration villages.

Public bidding information shows that at the end of 2022, Shangma Street, Chengyang District, Qingdao City, launched a beautiful rural demonstration village construction project in Liujia Community, including rainwater projects, sewage projects, water supply projects, etc. The funding source is 100% funded by the local finance, and the winning bid is 6.3192 million yuan.

In fact, as early as 2019, Liujia Community had carried out a beautiful rural demonstration village construction project, and the construction content at that time included laying sewage pipes. However, despite more than one demonstration construction and rounds of funding, the sewage discharge problem of the people in Liujia Community has never been solved.

Villagers told reporters that according to the "Liujia Community Beautiful Countryside Planning Sewage Completion Map", some locations of the main pipeline had not been excavated at all.

Villagers from Liujia Community, Shangma Street, Chengyang District, Qingdao City: This old asphalt road has been built for nearly 30 years. When the pipeline was built, it was not dug at all. The road remains the same as before. The pipeline was not dug, the pipes were not laid, and nothing was moved.

The "Liujia Community Beautiful Countryside Planning Sewage Completion Map" shows that domestic sewage from the upper and left areas of the village is collected through the main pipeline at the main street and discharged into the sewage treatment module below. Not only is the main pipeline non-existent, the sewage treatment module that has been built is also a decoration.

The reporter saw that the sewage treatment module had all the necessary equipment and facilities inside the fence, but the filtering equipment inside the station was free of any dirt, just like new. The sewage outlet had been covered with spider webs because no sewage had been discharged for a long time.

The rural sewage treatment system in Liujia Community, which has been built after several rounds of construction, is actually a "showpiece" and a "tofu dregs" project. For example, the manhole covers where the septic tanks of residents are connected to the inspection wells should have been equipped with cast iron covers, but the covers used were all made of plastic, which would break apart if stepped on or bent by hand, so the villagers could only walk around these covers.

In Liujia Community, not only the sewage pipe network cannot be used, but also many problems exist in the reconstruction process of the village's power and weak current. From the photos taken by villagers during the construction period, we can see that the red strong current cables were directly built into the sewage well, the white weak current cables were randomly inserted into the cement rainwater pipes, and some strong and weak current cables were randomly buried in the drainage ditch.

With the help of villagers, the reporter opened a sewage well and removed the soil to see red power cables and sewage pipes placed side by side. According to construction specifications, power and weak current pipes and sewage pipes must be kept at a certain distance, because once the sewage pipe leaks or is damaged, the adjacent power and weak current pipes will bring immeasurable dangers.

In addition, the Liujia Community's road hardening project in the beautiful countryside construction project also had quality problems. The cement road surface in front of a villager's house could be easily scratched off by hand.

The "Road Completion Map" of the 2019 Liujia Community Beautiful Countryside Planning Master Plan shows that the construction standard is "C30 grade concrete road surface 15 cm thick", but the actual road surface is only about two centimeters.

At the intersection of the main road of Liujia Community, the reporter also found a strange area. There were circular cracks of different sizes on the cement floor every one meter, and there were at least a dozen of them along the road. The villagers told the reporter that this was the special plot used by Liujia Community to deal with inspections from higher authorities and project quality inspections. Whenever villagers reported problems to higher authorities, they would be brought here for random inspections. The reason was simple: only the cement quality and thickness here met the standards.

Seeing that the reporter was there to investigate, the villagers of Liujia Community took out several documents, one of which was a receipt from the village committee, which stated, "The finance department paid a total of 330,700 yuan for toilet renovation in 2013."

The other is the "2013 Liujia Community Villagers' Toilet Renovation Funding Details List", with the amount being 700 yuan per household, and listed with the recipients' signatures and red fingerprints.

But the villagers told reporters that many people in the village had never seen the subsidy funds for the toilet renovation, and the signatures and fingerprints were not from the villagers themselves.

In order to prove that the signature on the form was forged, a villager wrote his own name on the spot.

In addition to Liujia Community, Wanglinzhuang Village, 2 kilometers away, also has problems with rural toilet renovation and sewage treatment projects. The exhaust pipe set up to solve the safety problem of the septic tank is not connected to the septic tank at all, but is only symbolically placed on the side of the septic tank.

Villagers from Wanglinzhuang Village, Shangma Street, Chengyang District, Qingdao City: From 2016 to 2017, they didn’t have enough toilets to renovate, so they just added a pipe to make it a regular one.

When the reporter visited Wanglinzhuang Village, he found that some of the three-chamber septic tanks that had been built had not been put into use, and there was a lot of domestic garbage stored in them. Some houses that had long been abandoned were included in the statistical list of toilet reforms. For example, a five-guarantee household who had died more than ten years ago was included in the list, but in fact no toilet reforms were carried out, and it was just to make up the numbers.

Not only that, the villager with the same house number and the same name appeared four times on the toilet renovation list.

Regarding the problems with toilet renovation, residents of Wanglinzhuang Village have repeatedly reported them to relevant departments, but the official reply they received was: "According to the implementation, there are 1,595 households in Wanglinzhuang Community. In 2016 and 2017, according to the toilet renovation work arrangements of the superiors, a total of 1,052 toilets were renovated, and all passed the district and city acceptance."

In Qingdao, in addition to Chengyang District, reporters also found problems in Jimo District. After the sewage treatment project in Wangjiajie Village, Daxin Street, was completed, sewage wells began to gush out every time it rained, and the whole village was filled with the stench of sewage.

Some villagers could not bear the overflow of sewage outside their homes, so they simply sealed the sewage wells with cement.

In recent years, villagers in Wangjiajie Village have reported the problem to the street and the competent department many times, but it has never been resolved. A village cadre told reporters that Wangjiajie Village is divided into two areas, north and south. The domestic sewage of villagers in the south is directly connected to the municipal main network, while the sewage in the northern area has never been connected to the main network. The village can only connect a temporary sewage pipe from the sewage treatment plant.

Village cadres told reporters that the current stopgap measure is for the street to arrange sanitation vehicles to go to the sewage collection station every day to suck away the sewage in order to barely maintain the status quo. However, as soon as it rains, water will bubble out from the sewage manhole covers in the village.

Villagers from Wangjiajie Village, Daxin Street, Jimo District, Qingdao City: The traffic is jammed when it rains, and there are rivers when it rains. When it rains heavily, there are big rivers, and when it rains lightly, there are small rivers.

Public data shows that since 2016, Jimo District has taken the lead in Qingdao in developing beautiful and livable villages and has continued to create beautiful rural demonstration villages. The northern part of Wangjiajie Village has not been able to connect to the main network, and the local authorities said they are studying solutions.