Author: Minnie Chan, South China Morning Post

Dated: 15 Oct 2006

A report issued by the State Environmental Protection Administration (Sepa) following investigations into water pollution in Guizhou, Jilin and Heilongjiang said it found extensive illegal operations in the provinces’ power plants…In Guizhou…, 287 of 8,274 enterprises investigated had been penalised by mid-September…In Liupanshui, one senior official publicly denied the city had a coal-chemical industry or drinking-water problems…Facilities that look complete on the outside are often just facades to fool environmental inspectors, the report said…The report also said three power plants near Liupanshui had not been approved by the National Development and Reform Commission. “The production facility of Anshun Power Plant [in Guizhou] [owned by Guizhou CLP Power, part of CLP Holdings] is critically backwards…Two generators in Qing Township Power Plant [or Qingzhen Power Plant, part of China Huadian] should be shut down according to our country’s policy, but they are still in production…In Jilin province, the Sepa team found local governments below the city level had turned a blind eye to many polluting factories being built on the upper reaches of rivers or drinking-water sources…In Jilin, steel factories refused to upgrade water-treatment facilities and continued to discharge effluent on farmland. The report said waste water discharged from leather, paper and milk industries in Heilongjiang did not meet environmental protection standards.