China Environmental Law

The Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) has cracked down on several “polluting cities” and “thermal power projects.” Xinhua reports  that “China meted out penalties to four cities and 10 power firms for their failures in meeting anti-pollution requirements.”

Here’s the news with respect to the cities:

Pre-construction environmental evaluation was halted for all new projects that can increase carbon oxygen demand (COD), a measure of water pollution, in the Yingtan city of east China’s Jiangxi Province, Sanya City of the Hainan Province, Hechi City of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Yuxi City of Yunnan Province.

The decision was made by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and other three government departments because the four cities’ sewage treating plants had “lagged too much in construction, run below capacity for a long time or not been in operation without reasons,” Xinhua learnt on Tuesday.

Now the “thermal power projects:”

The government agencies also suspended such assessments for all thermal power projects of China Resources Power Holdings Co., Ltd., Guizhou Jinyuan Group Co., Ltd. and Shanxi International Electricity Group Limited Company, because the three firms had failed to construct and operate sulphur-eliminating facilities by the end of 2007.

In another seven power companies, including four under the country’s leading power groups, sulfur-eliminating facilities had been found in “abnormal operation”. They were ordered to correct the problems, turn in part of their revenues from electricity charges and pay back fees for discharging sulphur dioxide.

I’m not sure what is meant by “abnormal operations,” but I suspect it means the plant’s scrubbers weren’t turned on, have not been maintained, and/or were built to treat a lower sulfur content coal than the facility is now using.  In any event, the punishment imposed (including the recovery of revenue) is pretty tough especially in light of the problems facing the power generation industry in China these days.  Unfortunately, there is usually little follow-up in the press about how long the “suspensions” last, the amount of penalties actually paid, and the corrections made to fix the problems, so we may never know how effective these efforts truly were.  Note that the “abnormal operation” power companies were apparently not ordered to suspend operations, which would have been truly remarkable given China’s power supply crunch.

These high profile enforcement campaigns have occurred periodically for the past several years.  The most notable thing about the actions announced yesterday is that they focus exclusively (unlike most of the previous actions) on the two key pollutant parameters China uses to gauge its environmental progress, COD and SO2 (as readers of CELB well know).

The one strange aspect of this story is that it was connected with the Olympics.  The Xinhua headline “Polluting cities, firms punished ahead of Olympics” and the first sentence notes the actions were taken “just weeks before the Olympic Games.” I have to say I’m at a loss to understand what relationship there is between these actions and the Olympics.  All the effected cities are at least 500 miles from Beijing, and there is no suggestion that any Beijing area “thermal power” operations were effected.

Perhaps what the headline means is that these efforts are designed to show the world China’s “get tough” attitude towards polluters, or maybe we are all just supposed to mark time now in relation to the Olympics. Beats me.