The Ili River has been polluted to such an extent.

There used to be picturesque scenery here, with fat fish and lush grass. Qing Dynasty writer Hong Liangji once wrote the poem "Last night's rain made the Hun River grow, and a hundred thousand fish swam up like armored soldiers" in praise of the abundant fishery resources of the Ili River. There is also a song called "There is a Beautiful River in Xinjiang" that has become widely popular both inside and outside the region:

There is a majestic mountain in Xinjiang

That is the Tianshan Mountain

There is a beautiful river in Xinjiang

That is the Ili River

The snow and ice melt into a river,

Flowing quietly past the foot of Tianshan Mountain.

An ancient song

Nourishes me, nourishes me.

Warms my heart.

However, in recent years, with the advancement of urbanization in the Ili River Basin, the population in the basin has rapidly increased. In addition, sewage discharge from enterprises, tourism development, over-extraction of groundwater, illegal sand mining, garbage dumping, and the construction of numerous water conservancy projects have caused the biodiversity functions of the wetlands in the Ili River Basin to decline and the area to gradually shrink. The water of the Ili River has also become increasingly turbid and foul-smelling.

The pollution problem of the Ili River has long attracted public attention. The United Nations Environment Programme's "Global Environmental Outlook 2004/5" pointed out that "China's industrial pollution and excessive use of the Ili River water are one of the main reasons for the drying up danger faced by Balkhash Lake, the second-largest lake in Central Asia located in Kazakhstan." In 2006, the National Environmental Protection Administration listed the Ili River pollution case as a key supervision target, and the governance of the Ili River has been on the important agenda of the local government in recent years.

But like the Huai River and Taihu Lake, the Ili River seems unable to escape the vicious circle of "the more it is treated, the more polluted it becomes."