The national environment regulator yesterday publicized a further nine major pollution cases at a press conference and told local governments to take "real" steps to deal with them or face legal consequences.

The pollution involved has resulted in mounting complaints from local residents, said Lu Xinyuan, director of the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA)'s Environment Supervision Bureau.

"We shall resort to legal, administrative, economic and other means to tackle the issue," he said. He warned that those found responsible would be penalized according to the law.

This is the first time that the SEPA has openly demanded that local governments not protect polluters. It vowed to supervise the cases and intervene with other law enforcement departments where necessary.

The nine highlighted cases involved dozens of businesses in 10 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities, mainly concerned with paper manufacture, calcium carbide, coking coal and iron alloy.

The environment has been deteriorating over the past two decades, exacerbated by pursuit of economic growth at all costs.

Central government has pledged to take harsher measures to deal with the problems, but local governments have often hesitated to take substantial action for fear of slowing down local economic growth.

 A senior discipline inspection official of the Communist Party of China (CPC) recently warned government officials throughout China to stop allowing environmental pollution.

"We will punish whoever causes major environmental pollution and ecological damage due to misuse of authority or neglect of responsibilities," said Wu Guanzheng, secretary of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, to the SEPA during his inspection tour in late April.

(Xinhua News Agency May 11, 2005)