Residents wearing masks participate in outdoor activities on Lincui Road in Beijing on Saturday. The Beijing Meteorological Bureau issued a blue warning for a coming storm that was expected to increase dust levels. (Photo: Wang Jing/China Daily)
The national environmental watchdog is flexing its muscles in implementing the toughest law on environmental protection since the new minister took office.
Four city governments with serious pollution have been invited in the past two months to talk about their supervisory activities.
The top leaders of the four cities admitted that serious pollution existed and promised to take swift and tough measures to solve the problem during the talks, which were a direct way for the central authorities to urge lower departments to redouble their efforts.
The latest talk was with the Zhumadian city government in Henan province on Wednesday.
The city's environmental protection bureau said it asked the Pingyu county government three times to shut down 27 illegal leather factories, which had heavily polluted their surroundings.
But the county government acted slowly, and the number of illegally polluting companies increased to 30 in February.
The Ministry of Environmental Protection asked the deputy mayor of Zhumadian to ask the city government to order the county government to close the polluting companies and hold their leaders accountable.
Four days after the talks, the city announced that four leaders in charge of environmental protection had been suspended from their positions, and the polluting companies were shut down.
The talks represent a warning to local governments, reminding them to pay more attention to environmental protection, said Zou Shoumin, director of the ministry's Environmental Supervision Bureau.
According to the recently strengthened Environmental Protection Law, the leaders of governments are responsible for the environment and should resign if pollution results in serious consequences.
However, the bureaus of environmental protection in cities and counties face obstacles in implementing tough punishments on polluters, because they are branch departments of the governments and receive leadership from the government, said Zhou Ke, professor of environmental protection law at Renmin University of China.
"The direct talk from the ministry to local governments has been a good way to make up for defects in the administration system," he said.
This round of talks is the fourth since the new minister, Chen Jining, took office just two months ago.
Before Zhumadian, the ministry has talked with mayors from Linyi, Shandong province, and Chengde and Cangzhou, Hebei province, about pollution from illegal companies. Those three conducted thorough inspections and shut down illegal polluters after their talks.
More cities appear to be enhancing their fight against pollution before being lined up for talks.
For example, Beijing updated its emergency plan on serious air pollution on Monday. The plan lowered the standard for launching alerts. The city will tighten supervision on polluting companies and issue more frequent restrictions on air pollutant emitters this year.
