BEIJING — A court in eastern China has ordered six companies to pay fines totaling about $26 million for discharging waste acid into two waterways, according to the court’s microblog account. The fine, 160 million renminbi, is the biggest of any Chinese environmental pollution case and seems to signal that officials are trying to crack down on companies that have steadily degraded much of China’s land, water and air. The court announced its verdict on Tuesday. The ruling rejected the companies’ appeal of a lower court’s verdict in a civil case brought by a public interest group, according to state news organizations. Pollution has become a top concern of people in China, and some officials see those anxieties as a growing threat to the Communist Party. The Higher People’s Court of Jiangsu Province said the companies had discharged 25,000 tons of acid into the two waterways, the Rutai Canal and Gumagan River, from January 2012 to February 2013. The companies are based in an industrial district of Taizhou, a city which is in a densely populated part of China. One company, Jiangsu Changlong, was ordered to pay $13.3 million. That company employs about 1,300 people and makes chemicals used in farming, including pesticides, herbicides and those that promote plant growth. Four of the other companies fined — Jinhui, Fu’an, Shenlong and Zhenqing — also make chemicals. The sixth, Shimeikang, is a pharmaceutical company. The court said the companies must pay the fines to an environmental protection fund within 30 days. Taizhou City Environmental Protection Association, the public interest group that brought the lawsuit, was established in February, according to an official document posted online. The chairman, Tian Jun, is also the head of Taizhou’s environmental protection bureau. The document said the group had 60 members and “was formed voluntarily by local people who are enthusiastic about environmental protection, some government offices and other social organizations.” Officials began investigating the companies after hearing complaints from local residents, according to a report by Henan Business Daily. In August, the Intermediate People’s Court, in a criminal case, sentenced 14 people whom it deemed responsible for the pollution to prison sentences ranging from two to five years. The court ordered the companies to pay fines of about $26,000 to $66,000. The Taizhou City Environmental Protection Association then filed civil lawsuits against the six companies with the same court. The court ruled against the companies and ordered them to pay $26 million. The companies appealed that verdict to the higher provincial court, which upheld the lower court’s ruling. Some Chinese officials who are concerned about environmental deterioration in China have been seeking ways to increase the fines that polluting companies must pay. In April, the Chinese legislature voted to revise an environmental protection law to allow for larger fines against companies and longer detentions of executives responsible for pollution. Earlier in 2014, Li Keqiang, the Chinese prime minister, had said the nation was ready to “declare war” on pollution. “China’s amended environmental protection law strengthened the authority for environmental public interest lawsuits,” said Alex L. Wang, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, who studies Chinese environmental policies and regulations. “The question has always been whether anyone would be able to bring these suits and whether courts would be willing to uphold judgments against companies that are often substantial contributors to local tax bases. This decision seems to be a good result, but it’s hard to tell whether it is a sign of things to come or a one-off anomaly.” Scientific studies in China have drawn direct connections between river pollution and high rates of cancer among people living near those water sources. In late 2013, a senior Land Ministry official said that eight million acres of China’s farmland — about the size of Maryland — had become so polluted that planting crops “should not be allowed.” In April, the Land Ministry released a report that said nearly 60 percent of areas being monitored had “very poor” or “relatively poor” underground water quality in 2013.
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 15:15:09 +0000
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