Hebei province has come up with 10 ways to deal with the worsening atmospheric conditions and will start by tearing down some old coal-fired boilers as a means of reducing the smoky effluents.

Around 35,000 boilers are scheduled to be dismantled and 1765 are to be refitted for replacement energy sources, while 48 will be retrofitted to reduce the soot.

There will be other energy resource shifts as well, with two coal-fired power plants in Tangshan being changed over to gas and soot-elimination upgrades and renovations at more than 32 coal-fired power companies.

At the same time, 154 mines will work to cut the amount of dust they produce and 2163 building materials providers will get better dust collectors while the province establishes 25 key air quality control regions, where small enterprises will be targeted for renovation. There will be air-quality monitoring stations in 64 contiguous counties around Beijing and Shijiazhuang and satellite remote sensing used to monitor environmental changes.

The province will have 193 desulfurization projects and 81 de-nitration projects, and 308 dust-removal projects, with all county environmental protection agencies being required to set up air-quality monitoring stations by 2014 so that the air quality of the top 20 and bottom 20 counties are reported.

In addition, 60 key enterprises will get online monitoring systems plugged into a provincial network, while the authorities will take punitive action against companies that break the law, with rules to be clearly published. And, anyone who reports on illegal activities will be given a reward if an investigation proves it to be true.

There will also be a police environmental protection group formed to work with the environmental protection administration in enforcing environmental laws and authorized to crack down on unlawful behavior. Their key job will be investigating illegal behavior.