China Daily
September 3, 2006

China’s top environmental watchdog has launched investigations into six of the nation’s most notorious polluters.

China’s top environmental watchdog on Friday launched investigations into six of the nation’s most notorious polluters. Lu Xinyuan, director of the State Environmental Protection Administration’s (SEPA) environmental supervision department, told reporters that the cases for investigation include last week’s chemical spill in the Mangniu River, a tributary of the Songhua River in Northeast China. The river was polluted with up to 10 tons of xylidine, resulting in a 5-kilometre-long slick of bubbly, red water. Preliminary investigations found the pollutants had been illegally discharged by Changbaishan Jingxi Chemical Co in Jilin Province. Officials have already ordered the closure of the plant, and seven individuals responsible for the incident have been detained. “The factory was found to have been discharging the pollutant into the river even before the disaster was reported,” Lu said. “But no measures had been taken to discontinue that activity by either the factory management or the regional environmental watchdog. The factory failed to carry out the environmental impact assessment (EIA) as required by the central government,” the official reported.

The case was listed as one of China’s most serious environmental accidents, although measures have been taken since in order to prevent it from affecting the main stream of the Songhua River system, according to SEPA sources. Other targets of SEPA’s probe are: Harbin Gasification Factory in Northeast China’s Heilongjiang Province, which has failed to conduct a single EIA since it opened in 1992 and has continued discharging wastewater containing excessive amounts of pollutants. The county government of Xin’an in Luoyang, Central China’s Henan Province, which has allowed the construction of 100 factories with no waste-treatment facilities since 1998. The municipal government in Jinhua, East China’s Zhejiang Province, which allegedly interfered with the enforcement of environmental laws. Yili Prefecture in northwestern China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, which is responsible for the discharging of massive quantities of industrial pollutants.

A random SEPA inspection found that 22 out of 30 local factories failed to meet the government’s environmental-protection standards. Jinmao Papermaking Ltd Co in Langfang, less than 100 kilometres south of Beijing, which failed to pass the EIA test due to the lack of a required sewage treatment facility but attempted to start operations without permission in May 2006. “The ongoing probe will zero in on offences by governmental offices and law enforcement officers,” said Sun Huaixin, deputy director of the law enforcement department of the Ministry of Supervision. “Cases of local government’s hazardous environmental policies and attempts at protectionism will be strictly cracked down on,” the government discipline official pledged. SEPA and the ministry held their first round of joint investigations into four pollution cases, including 45 factories, in February 2006. During the six-month probe, 42 factories were forced to upgrade their environmental protection technologies, while another factory was closed down and two others remain in the process of installing and testing equipment.