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SEPA ruling ends debate on park project
By Qin Chuan (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-07-08 05:59

China's top environment watchdog ordered Thursday that most of a plastic membrane covering the lake bed at Beijing's Old Summer Palace be removed.


The lake plate was drained out in this image taken on May 13, 2005. [newsphoto/file]

Instead of plastic sheeting, natural materials such as clay should be used to help prevent water seeping away and a comprehensive plan for supplying water to the park should be made in line with ecosystem requirements, State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) Vice-Minister Pan Yue said in a statement.

The ruling should put an end to a case that has been rumbling on for months.

Environmentalists have lambasted the Yuanmingyuan (Old Summer Palace) Administrative Bureau over the US$3.6 million project, which hit the skids in March when Zhang Zhengchun, from the Life Sciences School of Lanzhou University in Northwest China's Gansu Province, found that sheeting was being put down.

The bureau said the project would stop water leaking from the lake and increase the park's water supply, but Zhang and other environmentalists claimed the membrane could cause serious damage to the environment.
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