Chinese lawmakers on Sunday began deliberating a draft amendment to the Water Pollution Prevention and Control Law, which gives more severe punishments on enterprises and officials who fail to fulfill pollution control duties.
The draft was submitted Sunday afternoon for first review to the 29th session of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), or China's top legislature.
It stipulated the amount of pollutants discharged into water by a factory should not exceed the limit set by national or local regulations, and offenders will be fined 100,000 yuan to 1 million yuan.
Those who discharge pollutants to drinking water sources will be fined 100,000 yuan to 500,000 yuan, the draft amendment said.
Environmental protection officials who fail to set up a water pollution
emergency response scheme, or delay reporting and hide water pollution accidents will receive administrative punishments or even criminal charges, according to the draft bill.
Factories that reject supervision and examination from environmental protection departments will be fined 10,000 yuan to 100,000 yuan, the draft amendment said.
All the above detailed fines are newly added.
Zhou Shengxian, director of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) said on the legislative session that "with the rapid economic growth and development, the country's water pollution prevention and control faces new problems when old ones have not been solved."
"The amount of pollutants discharged into water keeps high and water pollution is still severe," said Zhou.
Ground water in half of the country's cities suffers severe pollution, and 27 percent of 411 samples of the surface water in seven major water systems were graded "V", the worst polluted, according to a survey in 2005.
Some major rivers have been excessively exploited, resulting in the decrease of water volume and weakening of the rivers' self-purification capability, Zhou said.
Negligence of environmental protection has also led to frequent occurrence of water pollution accidents, Zhou said. According to SEPA statistics, the country saw 1,406 environmental pollution accidents in 2005, 693 of which, or 49.2 percent, were water pollution accidents.
The top environmental official said that currently 300 million rural people have no access to safe drinking water.
A much higher cost of green technologies and facilities, compared with usually slight fines for violation, also discourages factories to take
control measures, which has led to rampant pollution, he said.
In such a situation, Zhou said, the law needs revision to impose tougher punishments on violators to better protect the country's water sources.
According to the draft bill, governments at county-level and above are responsible for local water quality protection, and protection efforts should be included into local economic and social development plans.
The draft bill also required those who discharge, directly or indirectly, industrial sewage, medical waste and hazardous pollutants like heavy metals and radioactive materials must get prior permit for discharge.
Source: Xinhua
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