NPC to Examine Enforcement of Water Pollution Law

NPC to Examine Enforcement of Water Pollution Law

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China's highest legislative body will dispatch a team to several cities next month to examine the enforcement of a national law on the control of water pollution, which is described by a state environmental official as being " rather serious."

The team will go to Chongqing Municipality, and Hubei and Jiangsu provinces, all of which are densely populated and have reported heavy water pollution associated with the rapid growth of the local economy.

The two-month review is to focus on how the law has been implemented to treat or prevent industrial pollutants, urban sewage, and pollution caused by fertilizer and pesticide discharged from farmland.

The law on prevention and treatment of water pollution was passed by the National People's Congress (NPC) Standing Committee in 1984 and revised in 1996. A legal framework has taken shape as additional 16 regulations, governmental rules and industry policies were adopted.

However, the total amount of water pollutants which were discharged from industrial production, farming and daily life, has been far beyond the self-purification ability of the water.

"The water pollution has become rather serious," Xie Zhenhua, director of the State Environmental Protection Administration, said at a meeting called by the inspection team here Thursday.

Despite the fact that 95 percent of industrial waste water and 34 percent of urban sewage was treated before being poured into rivers and lakes, the quality of treatment remains low, Xie said.

A 2001-2005 plan for water pollution control will see a 10 percent decline of major indicators of water pollution, such as COD (chemical oxygen demand), ammonia and nitrogen, by the year 2005, from the level of the year 2000, he told the meeting participants, including Li Peng, chairman of the NPC Standing Committee.

The team, headed by Zou Jiahua, vice-chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, also plan to pay attention to environmental issues of the Three Gorges dam on the Yangtze River, protection of the ecological environment in the river basin, and the quality of river water in south China, which will be diverted to the drought- stricken north via massive projects in coming years.