Limits will be lifted on fines for firms that dump waste into
water, according to a legislative amendment unveiled yesterday.
The current cap on fines for water polluters is 1 million yuan
(US$131,000) besides administrative and legal penalties - which is
not considered deterrent enough.
The draft amendment to the water pollution prevention and
control law proposed fines that range from 20 percent to 30 percent
of direct economic loss caused by polluters.
The draft was submitted yesterday for review to the Standing
Committee of the National People's Congress, the top
legislature.
"The amendment will end the anomaly - high cost for those who
comply with the law and light penalties for violators," said Zhou
Shengxian, minister of the State Environmental Protection
Administration (SEPA), while explaining the draft to lawmakers.
People involved in major water pollution accidents also face
prosecution, according to the draft law.
The proposed amendment to the law, which came into effect in
1996, has a number of provisions to tackle increasingly serious
water pollution, according to Zhou:
Governments are responsible for controlling the total amount of
major water pollution discharges; and administrations above the
county level have to closely watch pollution emissions from
industrial, farming and other sectors.
To control the total amount of pollutant emissions, authorities
will devise a license system for emitters of wastewater containing
toxic or radioactive materials. Without the license, enterprises
will be banned from discharging pollutants into water.
There is added emphasis on the protection of drinking water
sources.
The emergency response capability for dealing with water
pollution accidents will be strengthened.
The minister said an amendment is urgently needed as water
pollution is getting increasingly worse.
According to SEPA data, of the 1,406 environmental accidents
reported in 2005, water pollution accidents accounted for nearly
half.
Also, groundwater in more than half of Chinese cities is
polluted, and drinking water supply for over 300 million people in
rural areas is threatened, according to SEPA figures. The
ecological systems of major rives, such as Huaihe, Liaohe and
Haihe, have been severely damaged.
Zhang Jianyu, a visiting scholar at Tsinghua University, said it
is not easy to calculate losses from an environmental accident,
which may hinder the implementation of the amended law.
In addition, not all environmental pollution results in an
accident, which makes meting out a fine difficult.
He called for a simple and effective measure, such as working
out a cumulative daily penalty system without caps.
(China Daily August 27, 2007)