Factories along China's Huaihe River and around Taihu Lake will
have to obtain permits before they discharge waste into the river
and lake, the country's environmental agency announced on
Wednesday.?
The regulations are aimed?at improving the water quality in
the Huaihe and Taihu, which are on the country's most polluted
list, according to a statement from the State Environmental
Protection Administration (SEPA).
Factories to be given permits will be strictly regulated in
terms of type, volume and density of the discharged pollutant, and
when, how and where the waste is to be discharged.
A SEPA official said that a first round of permits will be
issued to 5,372 factories and plants along the river and around
Taihu.
The factories and plants receiving the permits account for 16
percent of applications. But these factories are also responsible
for 82 percent of the total volume of discharged waste. Further,
their discharge accounts for 86 percent of COD and 80 percent of
NH3-N, two kinds of major pollutants, present in the total volume
of discharged waste.
The official said that with the establishment of the permit
system, the waste discharged into the river and lake will be cut by
10 percent annually.
The SEPA has issued a work program to implement the system,
which stipulates measures for supervision and penalties.
"The permit system will be implemented nationwide after we have
gained some experience from the Huaihe and Taihu program," the
official said.
The Huaihe, one of the longest rivers in China, runs through Henan,
Shandong,
Anhui
and Jiangsu
provinces in central and east China, and the Taihu is the third
largest freshwater lake in China.
(Xinhua News Agency May 19, 2005)