Draft law to curb water pollution
Print Edition
CHINA’S top legislature is to revise a law that will improve efforts to prevent water pollution by strengthening governments’ responsibilities and supervision, according to a draft released yesterday.
Local governments should set time limits and make efforts to improve water quality, and will be authorized to issue tougher pollutant control requirements in water quality standards, according to a draft revised version of the Water Pollution Prevention Law submitted to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress for its first reading.
The draft says county and municipal-level governments should report their plans for water quality improvement to higher levels of government and make such plans public.
Environmental monitoring systems should be improved, with specifications set in regard to self-monitoring obligations for polluting enterprises.
According to the draft, chemical producers, industrial and mining zones, tailing ponds, dangerous chemical disposal sites and landfills should take measures to prevent leakage and dig wells to monitor groundwater quality.
Gas stations have to use double-walled underground tanks or build anti-leakage pools to avoid polluting groundwater, according to the draft.
The push to strengthen groundwater protection comes after a number of incidents.
In April 2014, in Lanzhou in northwest China, benzene leaked from a petrochemical company pipeline, leading to benzene levels in the city’s tap water more than 10 times higher than national standards.
The draft aims to strengthen the protection of drinking water, stating that emergency response measures and back-up water sources should be set up in cities with single water sources, and says the quality of drinking water should be closely monitored, with relevant information made public.
Water pollution prevention in key areas including industrial sewage, groundwater, agriculture and in rural regions, as well as pollution from ships, should be strengthened, according to the draft.
The draft also imposes tougher punishments, doubling fines for offenses.
The current Water Pollution Prevention Law, which was enacted in 1984 and amended in 1996 and 2008, has played an important role in curbing water pollution, said Chen Jining, the environmental protection minister, at the opening meeting of the bimonthly session of the legislature.
During the 12th Five-Year plan (2011-2015), China’s chemical oxygen demand, a measure of organic pollutants in water, dropped by 12.9 percent, and emissions of ammoniacal nitrogen shrank 13 percent, exceeding expectations.
However, Chen said China still had severe problems with water pollution and the draft is meant to ensure better implementation of a water pollution prevention plan issued by the State Council in April last year.
Also yesterday, lawmakers reviewed a draft environment protection tax law to upgrade the current pollutant discharge fee system into a law that will tax air and water pollutants, solid waste and industrial noise at different rates.
China established its pollutant discharge fee system in 1979. In 2015, it collected 17.3 billion yuan (US$2.5 billion) from some 280,000 businesses.
However, some local governments exploited loopholes to secretly exempt such fees for enterprises that are major contributors to fiscal revenues.
The new draft law, submitted for a second reading by lawmakers, is targeted at better equipping the country in its fight against chronic and intractable pollution in the coming years.
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