IHT - "Eastern China's Jiangsu Province posted a notice Friday on a government Web site announcing plans to spend 108.5 billion yuan, or $14.4 billion, for a clean-up campaign of Lake Tai, the country's third-largest freshwater lake. The campaign would initially focus on eradicating the toxic algal bloom that choked the lake this spring and left more than 2 million people without drinking water."

That is really good news.

And suggests that grass roots activism (even if it leads to getting tortured and wrongfully imprisoned) and good reporting (even [especially?] in foreign newspapers), can have a significant impact on Chinese internal policies.

But the new crackdown has not helped a local environmentalist who spent more than a decade trying to force official action. Wu Lihong, a feisty peasant, had repeatedly protested against the chemical factories and the local officials who protected them.

May continued activism and media coverage work to free him soon -- and continue to pressure Chinese officials, especially on more local levels, to implement more and more environmentally sound regulations and policies.

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.