China Environmental Law

More citizen protests against the construction of potentially polluting facilities, this time in Chengdu. The New York Times is reporting that 400 to 500 Chengdu residents participated in a “stroll” through downtown streets on Sunday to express their concerns about a $5.5 billion combined ethylene plant and oil refinery under construction by a joint venture of the Sichuan provincial government and PetroChina, in Pengzhou, 18 miles northwest of the Chengdu city center. The “散步” was reported domestically in The Beijing News, although it places the number of strollers at 200.

The protests were apparently organized in the same way as last year’s Xiamen PX protests.

The recent protest, which was peaceful, was organized through Web sites, blogs and cellphone text messages, illustrating how some Chinese are using digital technology to start civic movements, which are usually banned by the police. Organizers also used text messages to publicize their cause nationally.

In what has to be of some concern to the government, the story reports that

Protest organizers in each city [where other citizen-lead protests have occurred] appear to have no formal links, but they have formed a tight-knit blogging network that they use to trade ideas in an online world that the police, particularly at the local level, have trouble trying to control.

One outspoken critic of the Chengdu project posts regularly on one site that is frequented by Lian Yue, a blogger who was instrumental in organizing the Xiamen protests.

There is a simple of reducing these protests, however: follow the law. The Chengdu protestors’ demands seem quite reasonable and are no more than is required by existing laws and regulations:

Critics of the Pengzhou plan said in interviews on Monday that the government had not done proper environmental reviews of the project, which could pollute the air and water and lead to health hazards.

“We’re not dissidents,” said Wen Di, an independent blogger and former journalist living in Chengdu. “We’re just people who care about our homeland. What we’re saying is that if you want to have this project, you need to follow certain procedures: for example, a public hearing and independent environmental assessment. We want a fair and open process.”

Hardly a radical position! A full Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) would have been required for this facility. As one protester noted:

“Chengdu is in a basin,” she said. “If there’s a chemical plant there, it’ll bring pollutants. Also, Pengzhou is upstream from Chengdu, and the river provides the city’s drinking water.”

These factors should have been considered and addressed in the EIA. In addition, some form of public participation is also required, which given the scope of this project should have obviously been a public hearing.

 The local authorities were apparently caught flat-footed by the protests.

A brief front-page article arguing the merits of the project appeared Monday in a state-controlled newspaper, Chengdu Business News. The article said the project had been approved by the National Development and Reform Commission as part of a long-term plan to expand the country’s refining industry.

“The Sichuan refinery project will install advanced equipment and improve environmental protection facilities with strict pollution prevention,” the article said.

The last sentence may be true for all I know, but if it is, what can the authorities possibly have to fear by making the facts known to the public?

“What Chengdu people demand is very simple,” [an Internet poster] said. “This is a policy closely related to people’s interests, so why was it not open to the public?”

Good question. I hope the people of Chengdu get an answer, and I hope that the MEP steps in (as it did in the Xiamen situation) to ensure that the EIA laws and regulations are followed in this case.