Five provinces were named by the central ecological and environmental protection inspection team for the same problem

The progress of sewage treatment is lagging behind, and the infrastructure construction is slow

Five provinces were named by the central ecological and environmental protection inspection team for the same problem

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In the third round of the first batch of central ecological and environmental protection inspection team recently focused on the third batch of typical cases, the direct discharge of domestic sewage, the lag in the construction of environmental treatment facilities and other problems are shocking, and some places have even been named and criticized in the first and second rounds of central ecological and environmental protection inspections, but so far the relevant problems have not been effectively solved.

Whether it is Fujian, an economically developed region located on the southeast coast, or economically underdeveloped provinces such as Qinghai and Gansu in the northwest remote region, or Henan in the hinterland of the Central Plains and Hainan, a border island that is an important window for reform and opening up, some of its cities have appeared in the third batch of typical cases recently publicly notified by the third round of the first batch of central ecological and environmental protection inspection teams (hereinafter referred to as the inspection teams) because of the same problem.

This problem is sewage treatment, the above-mentioned circular in the direct discharge of domestic sewage, the lag in the construction of environmental treatment facilities and other problems are shocking, some places have even been named and criticized in the first and second rounds of central ecological and environmental protection inspections, but so far there has been no effective solution to the relevant problems.

What is the situation in such a wide range of areas where there are shortcomings in sewage treatment, and the related problems have not been cured for a long time? For the construction of environmental infrastructure such as sewage treatment, we cannot "lie flat," and how to make up for the shortcomings in a steady and steady manner has become a compulsory course in all localities.

Three rounds of inspectors pointed out the same problem

On December 2, when the inspection team came to the site of the second phase expansion project of the sewage treatment plant in Lingshui County, Hainan Province, they found that the project was still under construction.

According to the requirements of the 13th Five-Year Plan for the Construction of Urban Sewage Treatment Facilities in Hainan Province, 133 sewage treatment projects should be completed in 2020, and the above project is one of them, but construction will not start until May 2023.

Not only the second phase expansion project of Lingshui County Sewage Treatment Plant, the inspection team found that there are 10 unfinished so far. And even if they are completed, only 50 can be completed on time, and some still have the problem of poor results. The water purification center of Jiangdong New District, Haikou City, was completed and put into operation in January 2022, but since its completion, it has been "not enough" for a long time, and 36 kilometers of the planned 66.9 kilometers of sewage main pipes have actually been completed, and only 6.9 kilometers of normal water have been opened, and the pipe network is seriously damaged, resulting in low inlet water concentration.

The lag in the progress of sewage treatment work is also reflected in the "Three-year Implementation Plan for Improving the Quality and Efficiency of Urban Sewage Treatment in Hainan Province (2019-2021)" issued in September 2019, which clearly states that the full implementation of the drainage pipe network rain and sewage misconnection and mixed connection treatment, dilapidated pipe network repair and transformation and rain and sewage diversion transformation, but most cities in the province will not start until 2021. There are 12,898 defects in Qionghai's 327-kilometer drainage network, with an average of one defect every 25 meters. Up to now, Haikou has only investigated the situation in one area, and there are as many as 1,349 defects in the 61.8-kilometer pipe network in the area.

In addition, a large amount of sewage is discharged directly into the bay river. In the built-up areas of Hainan Province, there is a widespread problem of rain and sewage not being separated, and a large amount of urban domestic sewage is discharged into urban inland rivers and drainage canals. Since 2021, 48 of the 88 urban inland rivers (lakes) included in the monitoring in the province have frequently exceeded the water quality standard.

At present, there are 722.3 kilometers of combined rain and sewage pipes in the central urban area of Haikou, accounting for 41.1% of the total length of the sewage collection pipe network, and a large amount of rainwater and sewage are directly discharged in the rainy season. Since 2023, more than 20 million tons of rainwater mixed with a large amount of sewage have been discharged into the sea area of Haikou Bay through the power ditch and river channel in Longhua District. The monitoring results showed that the permanganate index was 34.3 mg/L and the ammonia nitrogen concentration was 8.5 mg/L, which exceeded the surface water environmental quality class III standard by 4.7 times and 7.5 times, respectively.

The inspector also found that in 2022, the centralized collection rate of urban domestic sewage in Qionghai City will only be 27.8%, a large amount of domestic sewage will be directly discharged, and the water quality of ditches such as Muyou Ditch and Shuanggou Creek will be inferior to Class V for a long time and even appear black and odorous. Danzhou City's domestic sewage collection trunk pipe is seriously missing, and only the urban flood discharge box culvert can be used to collect domestic sewage, and a large amount of rainwater sewage is directly discharged into the Guangji River in the rainy season, resulting in black and odorous downstream water bodies.

It is worth noting that the first and second rounds of central ecological and environmental protection inspectors both pointed out that there are problems in the collection and treatment of urban domestic sewage in Hainan Province. In this inspection, the problem is still prominent. Other data show that in 2022, the centralized collection rate of urban domestic sewage in the province will only be 55.9%, 14 percentage points lower than the national average.

The completion of the project has been delayed again and again

The construction of sewage treatment facilities has lagged behind or progressed slowly, and similar problems have been found in the inspection of Qinghai.

The inspection team inspected Qinghai Province and found that the domestic sewage collection and treatment facilities in Xining City had many historical debts, the construction of sewage treatment plants was lagging behind, and the rainwater and sewage pipes in the drainage pipe network were mixed and misconnected, and the sewage overflow or direct discharge affected the water quality of the surrounding rivers. The Huangshui River, an important tributary of the Yellow River, is now known as the "Mother River" by the locals, but now it is the "Nayan River".

With the continuous expansion of urban scale, effective collection and treatment of domestic sewage has become an urgent requirement to improve the level of urban construction and improve the quality of life of the masses. However, there is a problem that the construction of sewage treatment plants is lagging behind.

There are 8 domestic sewage treatment plants in the urban area of Xining, with a daily treatment capacity of 498,000 tons, and the actual treatment capacity gap is about 110,000 tons. The "14th Five-Year Plan for Urban Drainage Construction in Xining" lists the 80,000-ton expansion project of the third sewage treatment plant as a key project, which is required to be completed by the end of 2022 and actually completed and put into operation in April 2023. There is still a big gap in treatment capacity after it is put into operation, with 4.08 million tons of rainwater and sewage being directly discharged through the overflow from May to October, with an average of 22,000 tons per day.

In Henan province, inspectors found that the expansion of the Qixian sewage treatment plant, which was due to be completed by the end of 2022 in Qixian County, Kaifeng City, has not been completed, and the second phase of the moat sewage pipe network renovation project, which should be completed by the end of 2022, has not made substantial progress since it started in 2019. The Puyang Industrial Park Wastewater Treatment Plant was supposed to be completed in 2021, but it has not been completed so far.

In Fujian province, inspectors found that the Tieshan Sewage Treatment Plant in the central urban area of Longyan had been operating at full capacity as early as 2019, and the amount of sewage generated in the collection area was increasing, but the relevant authorities were slow to promote the expansion of the sewage treatment plant, and construction did not start until June 2023. A large amount of domestic sewage is directly discharged into the Longjin River through the overflow of the inlet main of the Tieshan Sewage Treatment Plant.

In Gansu Province, inspectors also found that some cities in the Yellow River Basin have lagging behind in the construction of environmental infrastructure, inadequate operation and management, and have problems with environmental pollution and environmental safety risks. Since 2013, Lanzhou City has developed and constructed the Baidaoping area, and the permanent population of the area has reached 65,000, with an average daily water consumption of about 17,000 cubic meters, but so far no sewage treatment plant has been built according to the plan, nor has the pipe network been built to connect with other sewage treatment plants, and the domestic sewage in the area is only collected and treated by temporary facilities, and the actual water treatment is about 7,000 cubic meters per day. On December 10, the on-site inspector of the inspection team found that some domestic sewage in the area was directly discharged into the main stream of the Yellow River without treatment, and the monitoring results showed that the concentrations of chemical oxygen demand, ammonia nitrogen and total phosphorus were 372 mg/L, 70.2 mg/L and 4.59 mg/L respectively.

Infrastructure remains a major shortcoming

"Direct sewage discharge", "mixed flow of rain and sewage", "poor construction promotion" and "lagging construction" frequently appeared in this centralized circular.

When the inspection was launched on November 21, it was clear that the construction and operation of environmental infrastructure would be one of the key points of the inspection. There is no doubt that the timely and proper treatment of sewage generated by urban production and life, and the improvement of sewage treatment facilities, as a key link in the prevention and control of water pollution, is closely related to the lives of the people and is an important livelihood issue.

As early as 2021, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development and other jointly issued the "14th Five-Year Plan for the Development of Urban Sewage Treatment and Resource Utilization", which proposed that cities and counties whose existing sewage treatment capacity cannot meet the demand should speed up the filling of the treatment capacity gap.

The National Conference on Ecological and Environmental Protection held in July this year pointed out that the mainland's ecological and environmental governance capacity needs to be improved, the ecological and environmental economic policy system is not perfect, and the ecological and environmental infrastructure is still a prominent shortcoming.

Also in July, the National Development and Reform Commission, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, and the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development jointly issued the "Action to Improve the Level of Environmental Infrastructure Construction (2023-2025)", deploying actions to improve the construction level of domestic sewage collection, treatment and resource utilization facilities. In view of the problems of insufficient sewage interception and collection pipes in some urban areas, old and damaged pipe networks, mixed and misconnected, and shortcomings in sludge disposal and resource utilization capacity, it is proposed to speed up the filling of the gaps in the sewage collection pipe network, improve the efficiency of sewage collection, promote the transformation of rain and sewage diversion according to local conditions, and speed up the filling of the sewage capacity gap in cities and counties.

"Local governments need to plan and predict future environmental governance needs in advance based on their own development stage and reality, and build environmental protection infrastructure ahead of pollution, rather than chasing after pollution. Yang Pingjian, director of the Environmental Sociology Office of the Chinese Academy of Environmental Sciences, said.

Although only five provinces have been publicly notified this time, in fact, sewage problems like this must not exist only in the places mentioned above. As one commentator pointed out: "Other provinces, especially those that have been pointed out by the central ecological and environmental protection inspectorate with similar problems, also need to draw inferences from others, conduct self-investigations, and actively improve to completely solve the important problem of sewage treatment." ”

Column Editor-in-Chief: Qin Hong Text Editor: Cheng Pei Title Image Source: Shangguan Title Picture Editor: Cao Liyuan

Source: Author: Rule of Law Daily