Remember a couple of months ago when we talked about the panic that was caused when a giant algal bloom happened in China, cutting off the drinking water supply to millions. Seems it is going to cost them, a lot, to fix.

China has announced a multibillion-dollar plan to clean up a severely polluted lake where an algae bloom forced the suspension of water supplies to millions of people this summer.

The $14.5 billion plan to clean up Lake Tai, in a densely populated area northwest of Shanghai, should take five years, said a statement dated Friday and posted on a government Web site of the nearby city of Taizhou.

The move comes amid mounting official urgency about curbing chronic pollution in China’s rivers and lakes that has left millions of people without clean water and disrupted city water systems.

Lake Tai is one of a series of lakes where blooms of blue-green algae blamed on pollution have disrupted water supplies this year. Some types of the algae can produce dangerous toxins.

“The plan will control the eutrophication of Lake Tai in five years and realize the clear improvement of water quality,” the government statement said. “In another eight to 10 years, the problem of the Lake Tai water pollution will be basically resolved.”(via)

This pollution is cutting off drinking water TENS of MILLIONS of people. Imagine if say the entire state of New York didn’t have drinking water. That is the kind of scale we are talking about. The environment is not just something Al Gore goes on about. It is the real life, physical world we live in, and if we mess it up badly enough it will no longer support us.