Chinese lawmakers on Tuesday suggested a more severe punishment
on enterprises that overdischarge water pollutants.
The amount of pollutants discharged into water by a factory
should not exceed the limit set by the national or local
regulations, and offenders will be fined 100,000 yuan to 1 million
yuan (US$131,600), according to the draft amendment to the Water
Pollution Prevention and Control Law which was submitted to the
on-going 29th session of the Standing Committee of the National
People's Congress (NPC), or China's top legislature.
The current fines on those enterprises overdischarging sewage
are too gentle to stop them from further water pollution, said Ni
Yuefeng, member of the Standing Committee of the National People's
Congress (NPC).
Even the heaviest fine of 1 million yuan in the amendment is not
a big sum, compared with the cost of running a sewage farm, Ni
said, adding that many heavy water polluters would rather pay the
fine than operating a sewage plant.
Ni suggested to further increase the fine, but did not give an
exact amount.
He said that the fines should be counted according to the
discharged pollutant amount based on the daily monitoring data, and
the operation of the online monitoring equipments should also be
subjected to regular supervision.
Earlier reports said that the emission of chemical oxygen demand
(COD), a measure of water pollution, rose by 0.24 percent to 6.9
million tons in the first six months of this year in China.
(Xinhua News Agency August 29, 2007)
