By Our Staff Reporter Ding Wei

Recently when this reporter went with the China Environmental Protection Century Tour Reporters Group to Hebei, Shandong and Henan provinces to inspect the water pollution treatment situation in river areas, our investigation result revealed: Although progress had been made in pollution control work, in some regions and enterprises, however, there was the common practice of "making false and nice appearance" in the course of pollution control, with the result that there was a great discount in the achievement of pollution treatment.

Although some enterprises have installed sets of pollution-control equipment, they are not willing to bear responsibility for the high expense on the operation of such installations which are therefore laid idle at ordinary time and are set to motion only when "outsiders" come. What is more, in order to cope with the examinees, some individual enterprises have unhesitatingly resorted to the practice of fraud. The several paper mills in Huaxian County, Anyang City, Henan Province are the major units causing pollution to the Jindi River valley, the problem of their above-standard discharge of waste water from paper-making has long remained unresolved. But when this reporters group arrived on schedule to Huaxian County to cover one of the paper mills, the reporters were surprised at the sight of the clear water without any peculiar smell flowing out from an outlet. Local masses said just two or three days ago, what was discharged from the outlet was still dark brown waste water like "soy sauce".

In order to gloss over their fault, some enterprises try to absolve themselves from blame under various pretexts. A paper mill in Taiqian County, Puyang City of Henan Province has all along been one of the focuses of disputes over pollution to the Jindi River at the juncture of Shandong and Henan provinces. In early August this year, the factory's waste-water treatment project built with investment from the factory itself began trial operation, But after two months of debugging, when the reporters group came to cover the factory, the reporters discovered that large amounts of black waste water were flowing out in a steady stream from the outlet.

What's worth mentioning is that leaders and environmental protection law executors in some individual places, cities and counties turned a blind eye to pollution treatment and even openly gave unprincipled protection to it. When covering a paper mill in Guantao County in Handan City, Hebei Province, this reporter obviously saw a huge amount of white sewage discharged from the outlet, but a local leader struck his chest as a gesture of guarantee that the water was absolutely up to the required standard. so the reporter took a sample and requested the local environment monitoring department to test it. The testing result indicates: the density of the oxygen consumption of the main pollutants in the sewage was 685 mg/l, the floating substance index was 1559 mg/l, far surpassing the State standard for discharged substance.

For many economically underdeveloped regions, the paper-making industry is an effective way to digest wheat-grass resources, as well as local people's hope to eliminate poverty and get rich. But approached from the high plane of the sustainable development of the entire river valley, if the deteriorating pollution trend is not kept in check, in the end the local people themselves will suffer. The correct way is for the enterprise to pluck up its courage to work hard to pass the test and meet the specified State standard for pollutant discharge, so that it enters a new starting point in its development.