Forty-five percent of China's chemical and petro-chemical plants pose major threats to the environment the country's State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) announced Tuesday.

 

In an environmental risk review of 7,555 chemical and petrochemical plants nationwide, SEPA found that 81 percent of the plants were located beside rivers and lakes or in densely-populated areas.

 

"Unless effective risk prevention measures are taken it would be impossible to check the trend of surging environmental incidents," said Pan Yue, deputy director of SEPA.

 

The survey was conducted in the wake of the major Songhua River pollution incident caused by a chemical plant explosion in northeast China's Jilin Province in November last year. The pollution threatened the water supply of millions of people along the river and alerted the central government to the high environmental risks of such industries.

 

The 7,555 plants reviewed involve more than one trillion yuan of investment (about US$125 billion). Of these plants 1,354 are located along rivers, lakes, coastal areas and around reservoirs; 2,489 are close to cities or in densely-populated areas; 100 are built near the country's major South-North Water Diversion Project and 86 are around the Three Gorges reservoir.

 

"Such geographical distribution poses grave environmental risks," said Pan. "It's the fundamental reason behind soaring water pollution incidents since last year."

 

From January to April this year SEPA received reports of 49 pollution incidents of various types from 22 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities. Of these 13 were regarded as being serious. The pollution was caused mainly by industrial accidents and the illegal discharge of pollutants by enterprises particularly from chemical and petro-chemical plants.

 

Pan said SEPA had ordered 3,745 chemical and petro-chemical plants to step up safety measures, 49 to relocate and added that 14.05 billion yuan (US$1.8 billion) would be spent on preventing environmental accidents in all the 7,555 plants.

 

China was in a new round of rapid economic growth, Pan observed, of which the chemical and petrochemical sectors were a major driving force. It was important to amend relevant laws immediately to strengthen comprehensive prevention of environmental incidents.

 

"Otherwise, environmental accidents will continue to occur and public environmental safety can't be guaranteed," said Pan.

 

(Xinhua News Agency July 12, 2006)