Ministry improves environment along Yangtze River

The Ministry of Water Resources has cleared almost 1,400 sites where garbage had been dumped along the watercourse of the Yangtze River and demolished 710 construction projects that intruded into the country's longest water body, a senior official said.

The violations were found in campaigns launched by the ministry after President Xi Jinping presided over a national conference on the Yangtze River Economic Belt in April 2018, Wei Shanzhong, vice-minister of the national water resources authority, told a news conference on Thursday.

The national conference was the second of its kind presided over by Xi. In both of those conferences, Xi demanded concerted efforts in Yangtze protection and called for refraining from excessive development.

While the ministry has cleared all the waste sites, it has yet to complete the work on demolishing or rectifying the construction projects, Wei said, adding that 73 projects intruding into the Yangtze's watercourse have yet to be removed.

Wei reiterated the ministry's zero tolerance of new violations in the country's water bodies. The ministry "will not only rectify these violations according to law and regulations, but will also hold those institutes and officials that are involved in the violations accountable," he said.

He also vowed to roll out surprise inspections as the ministry makes efforts to prevent new violations and take advantage of advanced technologies, such as satellite remote sensing, to intensify the monitoring of the country's bodies of water.

China has been making increasingly enhanced efforts to protect and remediate the Yangtze after Xi presided over the first conference on Yangtze River Economic Belt in January 2016 in Chongqing.

As part of the latest effort, Chinese lawmakers have started deliberating a draft law on Yangtze River conservation, which is aimed at protecting the environment of the Yangtze River basin and facilitating green development.

The draft was submitted for first reading to the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, China's top legislature, on Monday.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment this year dispatched 58 teams of environmental experts to cities along the river to facilitate local governments in remediating damage to the river.