Forty-five percent of China's chemical and petro-chemical plants
pose major threats to the environment the country's State
Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) announced
Tuesday.
In an environmental risk review of 7,555 chemical and
petrochemical plants nationwide, SEPA found that 81 percent of the
plants were located beside rivers and lakes or in densely-populated
areas.
"Unless effective risk prevention measures are taken it would be
impossible to check the trend of surging environmental incidents,"
said Pan Yue, deputy director of SEPA.
The survey was conducted in the wake of the major Songhua River
pollution incident caused by a chemical plant explosion in
northeast China's Jilin Province in November last year. The
pollution threatened the water supply of millions of people along
the river and alerted the central government to the high
environmental risks of such industries.
The 7,555 plants reviewed involve more than one trillion yuan of
investment (about US$125 billion). Of these plants 1,354 are
located along rivers, lakes, coastal areas and around reservoirs;
2,489 are close to cities or in densely-populated areas; 100 are
built near the country's major South-North Water Diversion Project
and 86 are around the Three Gorges reservoir.
"Such geographical distribution poses grave environmental
risks," said Pan. "It's the fundamental reason behind soaring water
pollution incidents since last year."
From January to April this year SEPA received reports of 49
pollution incidents of various types from 22 provinces, autonomous
regions and municipalities. Of these 13 were regarded as being
serious. The pollution was caused mainly by industrial accidents
and the illegal discharge of pollutants by enterprises particularly
from chemical and petro-chemical plants.
Pan said SEPA had ordered 3,745 chemical and petro-chemical
plants to step up safety measures, 49 to relocate and added that
14.05 billion yuan (US$1.8 billion) would be spent on preventing
environmental accidents in all the 7,555 plants.
China was in a new round of rapid economic growth, Pan observed,
of which the chemical and petrochemical sectors were a major
driving force. It was important to amend relevant laws immediately
to strengthen comprehensive prevention of environmental
incidents.
"Otherwise, environmental accidents will continue to occur and
public environmental safety can't be guaranteed," said Pan.
(Xinhua News Agency July 12, 2006)