Fourteen sewage treatment plants have been found to have serious problems in a national inspection, sources from the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) revealed yesterday in Beijing.
 
The inspection was launched by the administration this year and 535 sewage treatment plants have been examined. The 14 plants, scattered in small cities in 10 provinces, have been blacklisted by SEPA, the country's environment watchdog, due to problems of poor operation, excessive pollutant discharge and weak supervision from local governments.

The administration said that more than 100 others plants were found to have problems in the recent inspection.

"Embezzlement of special funds by local officials or a lack of attention from local authorities are believed to be the causes behind these plants' problems," said Lu Xinyuan, the director of environment supervision department under SEPA.

Some local governments looked upon the construction of sewage treatment plants as image projects. Once the plants were completed, they ceased further investment for daily operations, Lu said.

The operation and management of these sewage treatment plants also has problems, the official said.
 
For example, the sewage treatment plant in Bozhou, Anhui Province of East China, has been shut down because of a lack of investment. The plant was completed with a designed daily treatment capacity of 80,000 tons of wastewater in July 2003. It was funded by a treasury bond of 11.45 million yuan (US$1.4 million), but it had to be shut down because of a lack of financial input for a subsidiary project of pipeline network building.

A similar situation caused another plant in Shiyan, Central China's Hubei Province, to operate only temporarily. It cost 95 million yuan (US$11.7 million) in treasury bonds to build the plant, but without a subsidiary pipeline network, the plant can only deal with 55,000 tons of sewage every day, far from the designed capacity of 165,000 tons.

The government has invested heavily in these plants, Lu said. He said that it has cost 573 million yuan's (US$70.7 million) in national treasury bonds to construct 12 of the listed 14 plants, but they failed to function as expected.

"The malfunctioning of these plants prevents the treasury bonds from making profits."

"We will put the 14 plants under supervision," Lu said, warning that SEPA will work with concerned departments to conduct assessments on unqualified waste water treatment plants and find the departments and individuals that are accountable.