FOR the past drought-stricken year, most of the drinking water consumed in Beijing has travelled 1,432km (895 miles), roughly the distance from New York to Orlando, Florida. Its journey begins in a remote and hilly part of central China at the Danjiangkou reservoir, on the bottom of which lies the drowned city of Junzhou, reputed to be the birthplace of Taoism. The water gushes north by canal and pipeline, crosses the Yellow river by burrowing under it, and arrives, 15 days later, in the wa-ter-treatment plants of Beijing. Two-thirds of the city's tap water and a third of its total supply now comes from Danjiangkou.
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