The SEPA held the National Meeting on Pollution Prevention and Control of Rivers in Zhengzhou City, capital of Henan Province, on November 14. The meeting is to learn and implement the gist of the 17th National Congress of the CPC, analyze the current environmental protection situation, especially regarding water environmental protection situation and make arrangement on the pollution prevention and control work of rivers under the present situation. SEPA Minister Zhou Shengxian was present and addressed the meeting. He underscored that we must arm our mind with the spirit of the 17th National Congress, unite our strength, guide our practice, fully implement the scientific outlook on development, let rivers and lakes have a rest, promote the cultivation of the concept of conservation culture of the whole society and speed up the establishment of a resource-saving and environment-friendly society.

Minister Zhou noted, the report of the 17th National Congress highlighted the in-depth materialization of scientific outlook on development to stimulate the sound and fast development of national economy, accelerate the social construction focused on the improvement of people's livelihood and put environmental protection on a crucial strategic position. The convocation of the 17th National Congress marks that environmental protection has been streamlined into the main theme, major battlefield and stage of the political, economic and social life of China as a basic state policy and the will of the entire Party, and that the environmental protection undertaking with Chinese characteristics has embraced unprecedented precious historic opportunity. The environmental protection work system should carefully learn and popularize the gist of the 17th National Congress of the CPC, unify our thoughts, unite out strength and guide our practice in line with the spirit of the 17th National Congress, further raise our sense of responsibility and mission for properly handling the environmental protection work, continuously persist in the general consideration of overall advancement and key point penetration, give top priority to pollution prevention and treatment, consider the safeguarding of drinking water safety for the public as the primary task, earnestly carry out pollution discharge reduction and other environmental protection tasks and fully promote the historic transformation.

Minister Zhou said, the Central Committee of the CPC and the State Council highly value the prevention and control work of water pollution and regard it as the major task in the strategy of sustainable development. In particular, various localities and departments have done huge amount of work in this regard in recent years. Through a string of effective measures, the work in this front has made positive progress. However, we should remain sober-minded that water pollution is still quite common in China, water pollution treatment still lags far behind, there are still hidden risks with regard to the safety of water environment, the water usage efficiency is rather low, aquatic ecology has been damaged, and major rivers and lakes can hardly bear such pollutions. The severe water pollution problem has already become the bottleneck jeopardizing public health, affecting social stability and constraining the sound and fast development of the economy and the society.

Minister Zhou further indicated that, first and foremost, we must identify the goal in properly conducting the river pollution prevention and control work under the new situation. In the long run, the goal is to rehabilitate the original appearance of clean water and green mountains of rivers, safeguard the benign cycle of ecological system within river basins and ensure the safety of the entire river basins. While in the short run, the goal is to boost the up-to-the-standard rate of major indicators of key drinking water source areas up to 100% by the end of 2008; improve the water environmental quality of trans-provincial sections to meet the requirements of related planning, lift the urban sewage treatment rate to 70%, reduce the total discharge volume of major water pollutant of COD by over 10% from 2005 and strengthen the capacity of water environmental supervision and water pollution pre-warning and emergency response by the end of 2010.

Minister Zhou requested that the following principles must be firmly abided by in doing the pollution treatment and control work of rivers under the new situation: first, top priority should be placed on the environment. We must fully observe natural rules, and the carrying capacity of water resources and water environmental load must serve as the basis and premise for defining the scale and pace of economic and social development. Environmental protection requirements should be regarded as the prerequisite for the initiation of all types of economic activities, and related planning must conform to environmental protection planning. Second, drinking water safety must be secured. We should seriously treat the work of safeguarding drinking water safety for the public as the primary task, put the task of ensuring public health onto the first place and deal with the work of protecting drinking water sources as project for the welfare of the people and project for moral building and earnestly and promptly carry out the work. Third, we must pinpoint target responsibility. We should employ the method of specific policy for specific river to define the targets and focus of pollution prevention and control for different river basins and materialize related work responsibility. Fourth, we must tighten system management. The work of different regions in different fields should all be conducive to the safeguarding of ecological health of rivers, comprehensive treatment should be introduced to industrial, agricultural and domestic wastewater, coordinated development should be pursued to the upper, middle and lower reaches of the same river, and production, domestic and ecological water usage should be rationally allocated.

Minister Zhou also made deployment over the water pollution prevention and control work of rivers. He remarked that the following major works should be properly done at present and in the near future: first, various types of pollution discharge must be brought under strict control. The total discharge volume of water pollutants and the discharge of toxic and hazardous substances should be stringently controlled, EIA on planning and post environmental impact evaluation should be launched, pollution hidden risks should be eliminated, and the management should be stepped up on environmentally-sensitive areas and sensitive time period. Second, industrial pollution treatment should be deepened. The monitoring of key industrial pollution sources should be heightened, the system of discharge permit should be implemented, environmental protection checkup over listed companies should be augmented, and industrial restructuring should be accelerated. Third, the prevention and control of non-point pollution should be scaled up. The cleaning project in rural areas should be vigorously boosted, the doze of fertilizer and pesticide should be reduced, the scale of poultry and husbandry breeding should be defined based on the environmental carrying capacity of rivers, and the pollution prevention and control of ships should be elevated. Fourth, the urban wastewater treatment level should be lifted. The construction of urban wastewater treatment facilities should be quickened, the wastewater treatment levying policy should be amplified, the principle of market-based construction and operation of wastewater treatment facilities should be stunk to, and the supervision over the operation of wastewater treatment facilities should be heightened. Fifth, the protection of drinking water source areas should be reinforced. The planning on the protection of diversified types of drinking water source areas should be promptly formulated, the environmental law-breaking activities jeopardizing drinking water safety for the public should be severely cracked down, and the emergency response planning of drinking water sources should be laid down. Sixth, the water resource exploitation and environmental protection should be brought under unified planning with necessary coordination. Domestic water usage should be prioritized, production water usage should be properly arranged, and ecological water usage should be practically ensured. Scientific documentation should be conducted towards all kinds of water conservancy projects by taking full account of the potential ecological impact. The self-restoration function of the eco-system of rivers should be fully utilized.

Minister Zhou concluded his remarks by stressing that the targets, tasks and various policy measures of pollution prevention and control of rivers have all been clearly identified at present, and the key lies in rigorous materialization. First, we must continuously advance the planning of water pollution prevention and control of major river basins, increase our input in this aspect, quicken the step of related construction and efforts in pollution treatment in an effort to ensure the on time fulfillment of all the targets and tasks defined in the planning. Second, we must translate the trans-boundary water quality target responsibility into real action. Starting from 2008, the SEPA will perform checkup and appraisal over the water quality of trans-provincial monitoring sections against the annual targets. The provinces failing to complete the work task on time or with sharp rebound of the pollution discharge level will be subject to suspension of state-supported projects and the suspension of examination and approval of construction projects requiring extra pollution discharge load within the province. Third, we must tighten environmental enforcement and supervision, upgrade efforts in the environmental overhaul of drinking water source protected areas, industrial parks and key industries and harshly crack down on environmental illegal activities. Fourth, we should amplify the environmental protection legal policy and standard system, speed up the formulation and implementation of environment-related economic policies and promote the research and revision work of state and local environmental protection standards on rivers. Fifth, we must mobilize the whole society to participate in environmental protection, strengthen the popularization and education on the environment, advocate environmental culture, construct conservation culture, spare no efforts in building the sound atmosphere of treasuring water, saving water and loving water among the whole society and raise the environmental awareness of the general public.

Vice Minister of SEPA, Zhang Lijun hosted the meeting and delivered the concluding remarks.

Attending the meeting were also related principal persons from the NDRC, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Construction, Ministry of Water Resources, Ministry of Agriculture, the office of the Three Gorges Project Committee of the State Council and the Office of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project Construction Commission of the State Council as well as person in chief of all the departments and bureaus of the SEPA, the China Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, China National Environmental Monitoring Center, Chinese Academy of Environmental Planning and local environmental protection bureaus of various provinces (regions and cities) and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corp.