Chinese Gov't Contemplates Rules on Timely Reporting Environmental Emergencies

The government is mulling rules to punish those who fail to perform their duties to timely report major pollution cases, according to a senior official with the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) in September.

The MEP and the Ministry of Supervision will jointly release the regulations on questioning the responsibilities of relevant parties in failing to deal with major environmental emergencies properly, said MEP vice minister Zhang Lijun on Sept. 14 at a meeting on the safety of drinking water sources.

According to Zhang, "a bunch of" locations with drinking water sources are not entitled as reserve areas, and many such areas have been polluted by water upriver.

Zhang said the country will set up a mechanism to protect drinking water sources in five years and use remote sensing satellites to monitor the distribution of harmful materials in these areas.

Source: Xinhua