The State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) yesterday ordered the suspension of four construction projects for violating environmental protection laws and regulations.

"The projects should have applied for the checking of their environmental protection facilities before being put into operation upon completion of construction," said the SEPA in a statement.

It said all four projects were put into production or trial operation before applying to environmental protection authorities for inspection.

The projects involved are a coal power plant and a chemical fertilizer plant in northeast China's Liaoning Province, a cement plant in the southern province of Guangdong and part of an expressway running through a suburb of Tianjin Municipality.

The law stipulates that the environmental protection facilities of a construction project should be designed, constructed and put into use simultaneously with the project.

After construction is completed, the project should first apply to environmental protection departments for approval of environmental protection facilities before going into operation.

In the statement, the SEPA asked the four projects to follow environmental checking procedures immediately and listed a series of unreported penalties.

On January 18, the SEPA ordered the suspension of 30 large construction projects worth billions of US dollars for violating environmental impact assessment laws.

Twenty-two of them, mostly hydropower stations, thermal power plants and other power projects, complied by January 24, and all had by February 3.

(Xinhua News Agency October 26, 2005)