(Xinhua)
Updated: 2007-11-26 14:30

China's environmental watchdog plans to significantly raise fines for polluting in an effort to protect the country's much-threatened drinking water resources. 

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Maximum fines to individuals or companies, who discharge highly toxic pollutants into drinking water resources, were raised five fold to 500,000 yuan (US$67,600), according to a draft regulation publicized by the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA).

Those, who dump industrial residue or urban waste into drinking water resources, or store solid waste or other pollutants below the highest water line along the banks or at the beach land of rivers, lakes, canals and reservoirs, face a fine of up to 200,000 yuan, 20 times the current amount.

The draft also lifts the restriction on the maximum amount of fines for enterprises blamed for water pollution accidents. It said that fines for such businesses would vary from 20 to 30 percent of the direct economic loss according to the severity of the incident.

Enterprises should bear all costs for containing accidents and those causing serious water pollution accidents would be closed.

Fines for enterprises causing serious water pollution incidents are not allowed to exceed one million yuan, according to the existing regulation on water pollution control.

Inexpensive fines against polluters have been open to debate in China as many say they cannot effectively stop environmental violations. Environmental officials said that compared with the economic benefits of illegally discharging pollutants, the current level of financial punishment was just "a drop in the bucket" for most enterprises.

To weed out local protectionism of rampant water violations, the draft emphasizes the responsibilities of grass-root governments.

It asks local governments to step up protection efforts, to improve monitoring and management of drinking water resources and to regularly issue water quality reports to the public.

Governments and leading officials would also face administrative punishment if the quality of drinking water resources in their precincts failed to reach national standards.

They are also asked to make prompt response measures and issue warnings to the public in cases of emergency water pollution accidents.

The draft also says China will gradually set up an ecological compensation system for drinking water resources to adjust the interest between ecological protection and economic construction.

"To strictly control human activities around drinking water resources will inevitably restrict the economic and social development of those places... Therefore, it is necessary to set up an ecological compensation system to effectively solve the conflict between drinking water protection and social economic development," the SEPA said in an explanation to the draft.

The draft asks the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Finance to cooperate with the environmental and construction departments in the formation of detailed policies.

The SEPA had been studying the compensation system since the 1990s. So far, it has piloted ecology compensation fee collection programs in 24 state-level natural reserves in 685 counties of 11 provinces.

In September this year, the SEPA issued a document, announcing that the country will launch a pilot program for a national ecological compensation system for natural reserves, mineral resources, and rivers.

The SEPA said the pilot program was aimed at helping people living around natural reserves to change lifestyles if necessary so as to reduce the environmental pressure caused by human activities.

The draft was delivered to all provincial-level governments and state departments on November 13 for feedback, the SEPA said.

Water pollution is one of the biggest environmental concerns for both the government and public. A 2006 survey revealed China's surface water generally suffered from medium pollution. One third of the 744 samples tested were graded "V", the worst pollution rating.

According to SEPA statistics, the administration handled 161 emergency environmental pollution incidents in 2006, 59 percent of which involved water pollution.

The current Law on Water Pollution Prevention and Control was enacted in 1984 and revised in 1996.

The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the country's top legislature, started amendments to the law in August. In September, the General Office of the NPC Standing Committee publicized a draft amendment to the public and invited feedback.