Center

Ban slapped on polluting cities, zones

By Sun Xiaohua (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-07-04 11:11

No new industrial projects will be approved in several cities and industrial parks along four major river systems to prevent them from being further contaminated.

Six cities, two counties and five industrial zones were indicted by the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) for their role in polluting the Yangtze, Yellow, Huaihe and Haihe rivers.

SEPA will not approve any projects for three months apart from treatment plants and recycling facilities; and the ban will not be lifted until the sources of untreated wastewater are shut down and treatment facilities installed.

Pan Yue, vice-minister of SEPA, told China Daily that the environmental authorities had zeroed in on the areas following a thorough investigation.

The cities are Chaohu and Bengbu in Anhui, Baiyin in Ningxia, Bayannur in Inner Mongolia, Weinan in Shaanxi, Zhoukou in Henan; and the two counties are Hejin and Xiangfen in Shanxi.

The industrial parks are in Wuhu in Anhui, Lanzhou in Gansu, Handan in Hebei, Puyang in Henan and Shenxian County in Shandong.

Related readings:  Water pollution affects 200,000 in E. China city  32 firms shut down for river pollution Inefficient factories to be phased out Enough to make you sick

Surveillance by the environmental watchdog from January to April showed that water quality in these places was extremely poor, said Pan.

In Chaohu, for example, 18 of the 23 industrial plants checked were found releasing pollutants illegally into Chaohu Lake.

The lake was also hit by outbreaks of blue and green algae last month, caused by lakeside factories pumping untreated wastewater into it.

Altogether, 32 heavily polluting factories and six wastewater treatment plants were blacklisted by SEPA and ordered to fix their "environmental problems" in three months.

"Suspending approval of new industrial projects is the toughest measure that SEPA can take, given its (limited) authority," Pan said.

But he is worried about vested local interests.