China's top environment watchdog has fined the Jilin
Petrochemical Company, a subsidiary of PetroChina, the maximum 1
million yuan (US$125,000) for seriously polluting the Songhua
River.
An explosion at the company's chemical plant in northeast
China's Jilin Province in November 2005 resulted in
about 100 tons of waste containing benzene going into the nearby
Songhua River.
The incident forced downstream cities along the river including
Harbin, capital of northeastern Heilongjiang Province, to cut water
supplies to 3.8 million people for several days.
Under Chinese law, companies can only be fined a maximum of 1
million yuan (US$125,000) for causing pollution.
The State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) found
the company guilty of contravening the Environmental Protection Law
and two articles of the law on Prevention and Control of Water
Pollution.
The incident triggered the resignation last year of China's
former environmental chief Xie Zhenhua.
And 10 executives of PetroChina have received demerits on their
personal records including Duan Wende who’s the company’s senior
vice president.
SEPA has rarely applied the heaviest penalty to companies that
cause pollution, Thursday's China Youth Daily reported. Some
experts argued that the fine was inappropriately low considering
the losses caused by the incident.
Professor Wang Jin, of Peking University, filed a lawsuit one
month after the incident demanding compensation of 10 billion yuan
(US$1.25 billion) from the company to restore the environment.
The case was not accepted by the court but sparked discussions
over who should foot the bill for cleaning up the environment. The
government spent huge sums during the pollution crisis and on the
actual clean-up.
It again highlighted an embarrassing situation for China's
environmental protection departments which are constrained by the
current legal and policy system, the newspaper said.
The Environmental Protection Law has not been changed since
1989. Many complain it’s too "soft" with fines that are too low and
local environmental watchdogs have few teeth.
Some companies find it’s cheaper to pay a fine than to improve
their pollution controls, the report said.
And companies can be fined only once for a particular pollution
incident in a certain period. This has prompted experts to call for
a system under which companies can be fined for each day they
violate pollution laws.
(Xinhua News Agency January 26, 2007)
