LEX-FAOC142895

This Decision establishes the system of maximum quantity control and the verification procedure for control over discharge of major pollutants, according to law, where attempts to control discharged water pollutants within prescribed standards still fail to meet national prescribed standards for water environment quality. The Decision aims also at strengthening the prevention and control on water pollution in other rivers, lakes, reservoirs and coastal waters. To these ends, the Decision stresses the importance of specifying objectives and adopting procedures through which administrative officials shall be held responsible for environmental quality and of adopting a national and systemic maximum quantity index of major pollutants and a practice of regular publication thereof. According to the above-mentioned objectives, the competent local authorities shall set local objectives and measures for the improvement of environmental quality, and should submit them to authorities at higher levels for the record. Furthermore, the decision-makes provisions for the performance of strict checks on all large-, medium- or small-sized construction projects either at the stage of examination for approval or at the stage of acceptance after completion. Further provisions concern the measures to be taken in case of construction projects which have already been arbitrarily started or put in production or use without going through the procedure of environmental impact assessment, or construction projects already accepted after inspection but which fail to steadily keep to national or local standards on discharge of pollutants after being put in production or use. By the date of September 30, 1996, the competent authorities for environmental protection at all territorial levels shall ban all paper-making factories, leather processing plants, dyestuff making plants, on the basis of their annual output, and all enterprises that coke or refine sulphur through backward approaches known as pits"