The State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) announced on
Saturday that construction could resume on 26 of the 30 large
projects it suspended a month ago. The approved projects have
passed environmental impact assessments according to Zhu Xingxiang,
division chief of SEPA's environmental impact evaluation
department.
The remaining four projects include two power generators at the
Three Gorges on the Yangtze River; the main hydropower station at
Xiluodu on the Jinsha River, as the headwaters of the Yangtze are
known and a power plant in the Inner
Mongolia Autonomous Region.
Zhu said that SEPA is still studying the environmental impact
reports on the Three Gorges projects and has required that more
information concerning the source of water for the Inner Mongolia
project be provided. He declined to comment on the fourth
project.
SEPA ordered the construction freeze on January 18. The
projects, mostly hydropower stations, thermal power plants and
other power projects, were suspected of failing to meet
environmental standards.
Meanwhile, SEPA also announced that it had imposed a total of
600,000 yuan (US$72,500) in fines on the China Three Gorges Project
Corporation for starting construction of three power station
projects without approval by environmental protection
authorities.
The company has paid the fine and SEPA is still considering
whether to approve the three projects, including the Three Gorges
Underground Power Station and the Jinsha River Xiluodu Power
Station.
The fines -- 200,000 yuan for each project -- are a tiny
proportion of the company's outlay on the projects themselves, each
of which has a budget of about 1 billion yuan (US$121 million).
However, it is the largest fine imposed since the Law on
Environmental Impact Evaluations was implemented on September 1,
2003.
(Xinhua News Agency, China.org.cn February 21, 2005)