Time to clean up their act

Revelations of fake data prompt environmental authorities to separate their equipment from local govt

Work to remove air quality monitoring stations from local government control is almost complete, the Ministry of Environmental Protection says.

The move comes after officials in northern China were accused of tampering with pollution data.

The plan is to separate all 1,436 monitoring stations nationwide from provincial, city and county bureaus and place them under the control of independent companies that will report directly to the central government.

Preparations for the separation have been completed at 92 percent of stations nationwide, while all of those in 18 areas, including Beijing and Sichuan and Henan provinces, have transferred to third-party companies, the ministry said on Oct 24.

The independent monitoring network will be expanded to cover water and soil by 2018, the ministry says, adding that China plans to build a comprehensive environmental-monitoring and information-sharing network by 2020.

The network is intended to prevent inference from local authorities and guarantee authentic data, the ministry says.

Three senior environmental protection officials in the Chang'an district of Xi'an, Shaanxi province, were detained on Oct 21 on suspicion of altering monitoring data.

They are accused of having a duplicate key made without authorization so they could gain access to air quality monitoring equipment. City police claim they masked the equipment with cotton yarn to filter air and lower pollution readings to avoid punitive action.

"It is important to keep the monitoring data accurate to help the government take measures to effectively control air pollution," Chen Jining, the minister of environmental protection, said earlier this year.

The ministry has had 10 inspection teams in 20 provincial areas since Oct 21. They are reviewing and comparing monitoring data from official, public and corporate sites, as well as checking whether construction sites have the necessary permits. They are targeting companies that produce excessive emissions.

The ministry exposed several companies on Oct 25 that had falsified data to avoid fines after discharging excessive pollutants, including Yutai Coking Co in Handan, Hebei province.

"Independent and authentic monitoring data can help the authorities supervise companies' emissions, which is necessary for controlling pollution," said Ruan Qingyuan, a monitoring expert at the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, an NGO in Beijing.

Contact the writers at zhengjinran@chinadaily.com.cn

(China Daily Africa Weekly 10/28/2016 page15)