Inspectors fix problems in parts of Fujian, Liaoning and Hunan

Central environmental inspectors revealed severe pollution problems in Fujian, Liaoning and Hunan provinces, showing that some cities failed to regulate pollution and even protected the polluting companies, the nation’s top environmental authority said on Monday.

This round of high-level inspections, launched by the State Council in April, have reviewed how governments implemented the rules in fighting the country’s war on pollution in the three provinces. The performance of some cities was disappointing, leading to deterioration of the environment and large pollution risks, the inspectors said.

They found some city governments protected polluting companies by providing falsified documents in the central region of Hunan and northeastern region of Liaoning, statements from the Ministry of Environmental Protection showed.

In the core and buffer zones of Haitang Mountain National Natural Reserve, in Fuxin, a city in Liaoning, the management committee illegally approved a company’s dumping of mineral waste, causing severe contamination. The committee issued a false document to prove the mining and waste were not within the reserve, inspectors said on Monday.

Similar problems were found in Hunan. The Xiangtan city and Xiangxiang county governments issued false documents in December, saying that one of the leading companies discharged pollutants at a level lower than the national standards based on the online monitoring data. The documents were meant to allow the company to pass an