China's environmental watchdog is investigating a recent river
contamination incident after it learned that local authorities
ignored the recommendations of its own environmental agency to shut
down the plant responsible for the contamination months ago.
Earlier this month, untreated waste from a distillery in the
municipality of Hailin was discharged into the Hailin River, which
flowed downstream and seriously affected water supplies in
Mudanjiang, northeast China's Heilongjiang
Province, with a population of 2.7 million people.
"The Hailin Xueyuan Distillery is largely responsible for the
water pollution in Mudanjiang," according to a joint statement
issued by the Ministry of Supervision (MOS) and the State
Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) on Monday.
The environmental protection bureau of Hailin city submitted a
report to the Hailin municipal government in December 2005,
recommending that the plant be shut down.
"However, the Hailin municipal government failed to order the
shutdown of the distillery," the statement read, noting also that
the local government's inaction resulted in the sustained and
illegal discharge of pollutants into the river.
On February 19, aquatic fungus was found to have blocked a water
supply source in Mudanjiang. Sticky, yellow globs frightened city
residents of the city and prompting the local government to take a
series of precautionary measures.
The fungus was later confirmed to be the result of the excessive
discharge of pollutants by the distillery.
According to SEPA and MOS, the distillery built an alcohol
production line without having first gone through an environmental
impact assessment, and put the line into operation in the absence
of waste-water treatment facilities, dumping "highly-concentrated
polluted water into the Hailang River", a tributary of the
Mudanjiang River.
SEPA and MOS also confirmed that the Hailin Xueyuan Beer Co. and
Hailin Food Co. were found guilty of discharging amounts of
pollutants that were beyond the legal limit.
SEPA and MOS have demanded that the enterprises suspend
production. They will only be allowed to resume production after
the provincial environmental authority confirms that waste-water
treatment facilities meet with environmental standards.
This is the first time that the two central government
departments are jointly handling pollution incidents since the
central government issued last week a set of regulations aimed at
punishing government officials responsible for environmental
damage.
The statement also listed three other cases involving the
violation of environment-related laws, saying that probes into the
four cases will come under the direct supervision of the two
departments.
"The four cases must be handled in the first quarter of this
year," Sun Huaixin, an MOS official told Xinhua.
The three other pollution investigations to be supervised by the
SEPA and MOS include the "local policies and regulations"
formulated by Xinzhou city in north China's Shanxi
Province, which reportedly violate national environment
laws.
Also to be investigated is a manganese pollution incident at the
border area between Guizhou and Hunan provinces and Chongqing
Municipality.
The fourth case involves environmental damage by the Baimei
Paper Enterprise in Yuzhong County in northwest China's Gansu
Province.
"All local policies and regulations that violate national
environmental protection laws and regulations must be rescinded,"
the joint statement added.
SEPA and MOS also demanded strong measures against polluting
enterprises, saying that they must be shutdown if they do not
install sufficient pollution treatment facilities.
The statement warned that officials who obstruct the enforcement
of pollution regulations will be punished.
Following two decades of rapid economic development that has
improved standards of living for hundreds of millions of people,
China grows increasingly concerned about air, water and soil
pollution.
In their unbridled pursuit of economic growth, many local
governments formulated policies and regulations to attract
enterprise investment, irrespective of their environmental
policies. Some local government officials even went so far as to
assured polluters that environmental regulations and laws would not
be enforced against them.
The chemical spill into the Songhua River in November last year
sounded an alarm over the seriousness of the country's degenerating
environment, prompting the central government to take a series of
measures against polluters.
"For a long time it was difficult to tackle polluters head-on
due to the lack of regulations targeting officials who back the
polluters," Sun said.
Now that much-needed regulations are in place, "our law
enforcement work will be greatly enhanced," he said, adding that
the MOS and SEPA will soon announce other pollution cases that they
will jointly investigate.
(Xinhua News Agency February 28, 2006)