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The State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) on Tuesday reported the progress of a special campaign aimed at checking industrial pollution.

 

Wang Jirong, vice-minister of the Administration, said more than 140,000 enterprises were inspected and 8,366 illegal cases of pollution were found in the first half of the year.

 

Besides high pollution and energy consumption, enterprises violating the country's industrial policy and construction projects violating environmental protection management regulations, the most widespread problem is excessive pollutant drainage.

 

Wang also pointed out these enterprises choose illegal sewage dumping simply because the cost of obeying the rules of pollution control far exceeds that of illegal drainage.

 

This is a grave fact that leads to chronic and stubborn ignorance of environmental protection measures.

 

According to current environmental management rules and regulations, enterprises that are found illegally dumping sewage are usually ordered to shut down for a couple of days and fined 100,000 yuan (US$12,000) at most. For those dumping sewage that causes serious accidents and casualties, like the Tuojiang River pollution case against a chemical fertilizer factory in Sichuan Province that caused 300 million yuan (US$36.25 million) of direct losses early this year, the fine can be a maximum of 1 million yuan (US$120,000).

 

Companies naturally go after maximum profits. Compared to the cost of pollutant control, which can soar to hundreds of million yuan for treatment equipment and tens of thousands for daily operation in some large-scale factories, the fines are no big deal.

As local governments' pursuit of economic growth and protectionism often takes an upper hand over law enforcement work, the vicious circle of "violation-penalty-violation" is endlessly repeated.

 

Tougher punishment is necessary to cure this persistent disease of pollution. Severe penalties should be adopted to deter illegal behavior.

 

It is time for our authorities to face the fact and tackle the plight.

 

Only when the cost of breaking the law is significantly higher than that of abiding by it can the problem be solved.

(China Daily July 15, 2004)