More than 4,400 polluting metal processing enterprises will be subject to strict scrutiny by China’s top environmental watchdog in a five-year campaign to clean up widespread heavy metal pollution. The plan lists 14 provinces as the worst affected by heavy metal poisoning, including Guangdong, Zhejiang and Jiangsu. Analysts said the list underlined a worrying trend of industrial pollution quickly spreading from coastal regions to the vast hinterland. Emissions of heavy metal pollution in priority areas will be reduced by 15% by 2015 from the 2007 level, according to the plan. A total of CNY75 billion has been earmarked for the clean-up in the next five years, with five toxic metals – cadmium, lead, arsenic, mercury and chromium – listed as top priorities in the clean-up. Several heavy-metal pollution scandals have erupted in recent months. Statistics from the the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) show that more than 30 metal poisoning outbreaks have occurred across the country since 2009. A MEP survey showed that more than 80% of the sediment in the country’s major rivers, lakes and reservoirs was contaminated with heavy metals. More than 34,000 tons of toxic metal pollutants carried by the Yangtze, Yellow and Pearl rivers every year also pose a severe threat to the marine environment. Zhang said the regulation of the lead-acid battery and lead-smelting industries had been designated the “most important task” for the Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) this year. One of the measures introduced will require the authorities in all provinces and autonomous regions to release a list of all related factories through public media by July 30, in order to increase public transparency.

Beijing will apply a stricter emission standard for the city’s 5 million vehicles next year to reduce automobile exhaust, the biggest source of air pollution in the Chinese capital, Zhang Lijun, Vice Minister of Environmental Protection, said. “Beijing will impose the national standard V for vehicle emission in 2012 ahead of schedule, which will be around the same time a similar standard is imposed in developed countries,” he said. The number of motor vehicles on Beijing’s roads more than quadrupled from 1 million in 1997 to 4.76 million at the end of 2010, leading to widespread congestion and hampering the city’s environmental protection. Research has shown that more than three quarters of total air pollution comes from vehicle carbon monoxide and hydrocarbon emissions in large cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. The Beijing municipal government has raised vehicle emission standards four times from standard I in 1999 to Standard IV in 2008. With each raise, pollutants from a singe vehicle dropped by 30% to 50%. New car license plates in Beijing will be limited this year to 240,000, about one-third of the number registered in 2010. According to Zhang, air quality in Beijing has improved a lot in the last few years. In 2010, the number of days with air quality classified as excellent and good accounted for 78.4% of the whole year, an increase of 14.3% from 2005.

Lingering pollution problems in East China have stretched the budget for the eastern route of the country’s South-to-North Water Diversion Project and added to the difficulties inherent in maintaining the quality of drinking water in the north, Lu Zhenlin, Office Director in charge of the construction of the program’s eastern route in Jiangsu province, said. Efforts to control pollution along the 1,400 km-route have run into new obstacles, largely because of population growth and industrial expansion in counties and townships along the route. As a result, more efforts have to be made to clean up the waterways. “Since the projects concerning new pollution sources are not included in the project plan that was devised a decade ago, we had and still have to invest more money in them,” said Lu, without revealing how much more has been spent. “This is crucial to maintain the quality of the drinking water to the north, and we need to continue doing this, given that pollution may worsen with economic growth,” he added. “But we’re confident that the eastern route will meet quality standards and become operational by 2013.” The project will take water from the water-rich Yangtze river and divert it to the dry north along three routes ― the eastern, central and western water diversion channels – which each stretch for more than 1,000 km. The investment in the massive program is estimated at CNY500 billion. Officials now believe that controlling pollution will be fundamental to the success of the project. In the original plan, the eastern route, brought under construction in 2002, was scheduled to open in 2008. So far, 20% of the monitored cross sections along the eastern route have not met mandatory water quality standards, even though most of the pollution-control projects have been finished, the China Daily reports.

Top government officials in Hunan province vowed to tackle the heavy metal pollution that has caused environmental deterioration and mounting health problems in the province. Zhou Qiang, Party Secretary of Hunan province, said that he is confident the heavy metal pollution of the Xiangjiang river would be brought under control during the 12th Five Year Plan (2011-2015) period. In recent years, a series of lead poisoning cases and a recent report on “cadmium rice” have put heavy metal pollution in Hunan under the spotlight. “If there are any children tested to have excessive levels of lead in their blood, the government will make sure they receive free treatment,” said Xu Shousheng, Governor of Hunan. The province is known as “the hometown of nonferrous metals”. Xu said the work of local officials will be evaluated in the future on their environmental protection efforts. Zhou said heavy metal pollution will take much longer than five years to solve, and the first step is to prevent new pollutants from pouring into the river. The second step is to deal with the current heavy metals in the river. The Five Year Plan has set an emission-reduction target of 15% from 2007 levels for five heavy metals – lead, mercury, chromium, cadmium and arsenic – in key polluted areas. Blood-poisoning cases have also been reported in Shaanxi, Anhui, Guangdong, Sichuan, Fujian and Yunnan provinces in recent years. In addition, a recent report by Nanjing Agricultural University said research in 2007 found 10% of rice samples collected from markets were found to have excessive levels of cadmium, revealing pervasive heavy metal pollution, the China Daily reports.

An eco-friendly sewage system is to be built on Shanghai’s Chongming island, ensuring virtually no waste water is discharged into wetlands that provide a vital habitat for birds. Work is scheduled to begin early next year in an area of 12.5 square kilometers around Dongtan Wetland on the island. This will be the first time Shanghai has constructed a large-scale green drainage network, Dai Dongchao, an official with the Shanghai Urban Construction Design Institute, said. Under the new system, all waste water produced by households and businesses around the wetland area will be collected and processed for reuse. Treated water will be used for public sanitation ― such as flushing toilets, planting projects and other tasks. “It will be the first urban practice in Shanghai to make systematic use of processed waste water to support life and production,” Dai said. “Almost no waste water will be discharged into the environment around the wetland once the project is completed.” Dongtan wetland provides a habitat for many species, including migrating birds.