3 jailed by court for lake dumping

Three people were sentenced to jail for polluting Taihu Lake - two for dumping and one for committing fraud - the Gusu District People's Court in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, announced on Tuesday.

More than 20,000 metric tons of construction waste, household refuse and electronic waste was dumped into the lake after being transported from Shanghai by a construction company.

The dumping occurred in the vicinity of a drug addiction rehabilitation center on the lake's Xishan Island in May and June 2016.

Wang Juming and Lu Xiaodi, the owners of Kunshan Jin Lu Construction Co, were sentenced to 5.5 years and 5 years in prison, respectively, with fines totaling 550,000 yuan ($83,000), for "severe contamination of the environment".

According to prosecutors in Suzhou, Sun Qiulin, a contractor at the Taihu Drug Addiction Rehabilitation Center, told Wang and Lu that he could let them share in a dumping project approved for the rehabilitation center. He asked for 250,000 yuan to secure the deal in January 2016.

Sun was sentenced to 4.5 years in prison and fined 50,000 yuan for fraud.

Pictures of the illegal dumping were circulated on the internet in June 2016, and the dump was halted by local police the next month.

The site is one of Taihu Lake's protected areas, lying just 2 kilometers from the nearest township water source.

According to an early report from Supreme People's Court, courts nationwide handled 4,636 cases dealing with pollution, illegal treatment of solid waste and misbehavior by environmental officials between July 2013 and October 2016.

Before that, the average was only 20 cases a year, so a tougher attitude toward enforcement is having an effect, the top court said.