The State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) yesterday named and shamed 14 waste water treatment plants for badly run operations, saying that there are still more than 100 of such plants SEPA identified during its recent round of inspections.

This year's inspections by SEPA, covering China's 27 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, were aimed at evaluating operations of about 535 sewage treatment plants.

"The major problem with these plants are that their operations are either sluggish or substandard, or they operate at a very low rate of efficiency," said Lu Xinyuan, director of SEPA's Environment Supervision Department.

The government invested huge sums of money to establish these plants, Lu said.

Lu added that about 573 million yuan (US$70.7 million) was used to set up 12 of the 14 blacklisted plants. However, they are not meeting expectations.

Lu said that embezzlement of special funds by local officials is a major reason why these plants are not operating as efficiently as they should be. Another reason is a lack of attention or interest from local leaders.

"We will put the 14 plants under supervision," Lu said, and warned that SEPA will work with the relevant departments to conduct environmental and accountability assessments.

Plants in economically developed areas including Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin generally perform better, but the situation in other areas is serious; nearly one-fifth of the plants investigated have operation issues, Lu said.

(Xinhua News Agency September 6, 2005)