China Environmental Law

PetroChina’s proposed $7.1 billion refinery and petrochemical complex in Pengzhou (about 19 miles north of Chengdu, Sichuan Province) may be scrapped purportedly as a result of last week’s earthquake.  You may recall that this project was recently the target of environmental protests characterized as the “Chengdu Stroll.”

A Bloomberg story reports that

The nation’s biggest oil company will study the proposed site to assess whether it is prone to natural disasters, Chairman Jiang Jiemin said at the company’s annual general meeting in Beijing today. A taskforce has been formed to examine the earthquake’s impact on the location at Pengzhou, . . . he said.

The Pengzhou project underwent almost 20 years of assessment and research, and the government has approved the project after careful consideration, Jiang said today. The plant wouldn’t cause serious pollution to surrounding areas, except potentially in a natural disaster, he said.

This is like a US oil company saying that they had spent 20 years assessing the construction of an oil refinery in the San Francisco Bay Area, but had failed to consider the impacts of earthquakes.  Is it any wonder protesters were concerned about the quality of the environmental impact assessments performed with respect to the project and the lack of public input?

The Bloomberg article suggests that the earthquake may simply have provided a convenient excuse for cancelling a project that no longer made economic sense

Shelving the plant, while crimping planned refinery expansions, may partly shield PetroChina from increased plant construction costs and widening losses from processing crude oil.

However valid the points of those involved in the Chengdu Stroll, it did not save six of the protesters from punishment. Reuters reported 

Chinese authorities arrested one person on a charge of inciting subversion and warned or detained five for their roles in a protest in the southwest against plans for a petrochemical project, local media reported on Monday [May 12].

Police were seeking another two on charges of illegally demonstrating in Chengdu, capital of the southwestern province of Sichuan, the Beijing News reported.

“The police accused them of using the Internet and other means to spread rumours, inciting trouble or illegally marching or demonstrating, or using the Internet to spread rumours and harmful information,” the report said.

I can’t comment on whether laws were in fact violated (since I am not familiar with the criminal laws under which they were charged or the alleged facts of the specific cases), but I would hope that those arrested and detained are treated leniently. It appears they had valid points to make, and they wouldn’t have had to make them in an unorthodox fashion if the public participation regulations applicable to constrcution projects had been complied with.