A campaign jointly launched by seven government departments to guarantee the safety of source water has encountered obstacles.

The campaign launched last July, sought to ban sewage outlets at all source water protection areas by the end of 2006.

Seven government departments, including the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA), the Ministry of Supervision and the National Development and Reform Commission, joined forces in the campaign, determined to crack down on illegal enterprises that pollute source water.

However, Sichuan Province in southwest China postponed the deadline to the end of this year, and some provinces have not even completed the first-phase of defining source water protection areas, Beijing-based Legal Daily quoted a SEPA official as saying.

Leshan and Neijiang, two cities in Sichuan, said the work of defining source water protection areas was only completed at the end of last year.

"How were we supposed to move all sewage outlets in 2006 when the task of defining protection areas was only completed at the end of the year?" Tang Yifan, deputy director of Leshan environmental protection bureau, was quoted as saying.

Tang said even though Sichuan is a year behind schedule, it was still ahead of other provinces in the country.

Xiong Yuehui, deputy director of SEPA's environment supervision department, said some provinces were still in the middle of defining protection areas, while others, like Gansu and Ningxia, have not even started.

He said the situation is "complicated", as there is no State standard for defining source water protection areas.

However, it showed local environmental protection departments had failed, to some extent, to fulfil their duties, he said.

"It shows that an embarrassing situation does exist where government orders on environmental protection are difficult to be implemented at local levels," Xiong said.

(China Daily June 15, 2007)