The State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) said in Beijing that local protectionism remained a big obstacle in the way of the country's anti-pollution campaign that SEPA launched since early this year.

A total of 18,084 enterprises have been punished for damaging the environment in the past several months.

But 10,000 cases have yet to be settled as local governments have refrained from taking action for fear that punishment would impair local economy, said Jiang Yandong, director in charge of law enforcement with SEPA.

Friday, the SEPA exposed three such pollution cases that have yet to be resolved.

Ten paper mills in the city of Wuzhong in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region produced tens of thousands tons of paper without even one sewage disposal system.

The paper mills -- one of which is listed on the domestic stock market -- discharges more than 44 million tons of waste water to the upper reaches of the Yellow River annually.

A similar situation is also prevalent in Shenze County in north China's Hebei Province.

Three papermaking enterprises which discharged untreated waste into the environment were granted with certificates that stated they had met pollution control standards.

In another case, three environmental protection officials were attacked when enforcing punishments over pollution cases in the city of Zhuozhou of Hebei Province.

All these cases, due to the inactive attitude of the local governments and enterprises, are still unsettled.

Vice-Premier Wen Jiabao recently pointed out that central government should strengthen environmental protection by " harshly penalizing'' incompetent local officials whose responsibility is to safeguard the environment, as well as those enterprises involved in serious pollution cases.

So far, a total of 418 local officials and enterprise managers have been punished during the nationwide anti-pollution campaign, according to the report of the SEPA.

(China Daily 10/13/2001)