China says key pollution indicators improve

Two major pollution indicators have dropped in China for the first time in several years as steps taken to clean up the nation's devastated environment kicked in, the government said Wednesday.
Emissions of sulfur dioxide, a key air pollutant, declined 1.81 percent in the first nine months of the year, while chemical oxygen demand, a measure of water pollution, was 0.28 percent lower, said Zhou Shengxian, director of the state environment watchdog.
The two key measures had become symbols of China's inability to curb the rampant fouling of its air and water. China had set a target of reducing each indicator by 10 percent between 2006 and 2010, or an average decline of two percent a year. But embarrassed officials admitted earlier this year that both had risen in 2006.
In a statement posted on the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) website, Zhou credited this year's reductions to a campaign to install more desulphurising facilities in the coal-fired power plants on which China relies for about 70 percent of its electricity.
He also cited increases in sewage-handling capacity and said large numbers of polluting factories had been closed in a crackdown. "Our battle against illegally polluting enterprises has seen step-by-step progress," he said. Through the end of September, authorities had carried out more than 690,000 special inspections of various businesses, uncovering 10,000 cases of illegal polluting, according to the statement.
"We are pursuing cases against 429 people responsible for this to strike sternly against environmental violators," Zhou said. However, Zhou warned that the outlook for meeting the original goals by 2010 offered "no cause for optimism". A SEPA report in September had said China was finding it increasingly hard to achieve more than fleeting success in the pollution fight as the country's industrialisation hurtles forward. China's booming growth has ravaged the environment, with about 70 percent of its waterways polluted and urban air quality among the worst in the world.