China Water: June 6, 2008: Increased penalties for lake polluters.

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Peter Huston
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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Pollution/Tougher_penalties_for_Chinese_lake_polluters/articleshow/3101853.cms

Tougher penalties for Chinese lake polluters
5 Jun 2008, 1119 hrs IST,AFP

SHANGHAI: China has started a new crackdown on factories around the country's third-largest freshwater lake, raising by five-fold the penalty for excessive polluters, state media said on Thursday.

Factories along Taihu Lake in eastern Jiangsu province now face a maximum fine of one million yuan (144,000 dollars) if they exceed legal pollution limits, the China Daily reported.

The government approved the new fines last year amid a pollution crisis at the lake and they took effect on Thursday.

"Cities on the upper reaches that discharge excessive pollutants that flow into the lower reaches will be held responsible and will have to pay for it," Jiangsu Environmental Protection Bureau policy director Jiang Wei was quoted as saying.

Taihu Lake, celebrated through Chinese history as one of the country's most scenic spots, has been massively polluted in recent years by the dumping of sewage, industrial and agricultural waste.

Last year it became a symbol of China's deteriorating water quality when an algae outbreak there forced authorities to cut water supplies to 2.3 million residents of the nearby city of Wuxi for a week.

Even Premier Wen Jiabao publicly called for the lake to be cleaned up. More than 1,000 petrochemical plants in the cities of Wuxi, Suzhou and Changzhou have since closed and another 1,600 factories have been slated to shut down, according to previous state press reports.

One business executive said his factory had already spent more than 10 million yuan in the past year to upgrade its wastewater treatment facility but it now faced a choice: cut production or invest further in reducing pollution.

China's booming economy has come at a huge cost to the environment with up to 70 per cent of the nation's waterways polluted and air quality in its biggest cities among the worst in the world.