On December 15, the reporters learned from the Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau that, a company in Yichang received consecutive penalties from the Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau according to the Implementation of Consecutive Penalties Day for Day of the Environmental Protection Department, because they had illegally used pollutant treatment facilities and refused to correct environmental violation acts after being fined and asked to make corrections. This is the city’s first environmental violation case which receives “the penalty by day” since the new Environmental Protection Law has come into effect.

On October 8, the Yichang City’s Environmental Monitoring Detachment found that, YichangXuda Commercial Concrete Co., Ltd illegally used water pollutants treatment facilities and discharged of excessive pollutants after an on-the-spot investigation. On October 12 the city’s Environmental Protection Bureau issued the Decision of Correcting the Illegal Acts to the company in accordance with law, and required them to immediately stop the illegal acts and informed that they would bear the consecutive punishment by day if they refuse to correct their illegal acts. On November 2, the Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau issued Administrative Punishment Decision to the company and gave a fine of 1053 dollars in accordance with law. From November 10 to 12, through private detection, the Municipal Environmental Monitoring Detachment discovered that the company still illegally used the water pollutants treatment facilities and discharged excessive pollutants.

With obvious evidence and clear fact of the environmentally illegal and criminal acts, Yichang Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau adapted the “Six Musts” principle under the new Environmental Protection Law, namely: Those who deserve administrative detention must be transferred to the Public Security Department to be administratively detained; Those who are suspected to be an environmental criminal must be transferred to the judicial authorities to be dealt with; Those who are fined and refuse to correct must be penalized day for day; Those who are forced to close down for causing or threatening to cause serious pollution must be seized hold of the production equipment which causes population; Those who are limited or forced to stop producing for discharging over-standard pollutants must be ordered to limit production or stop for remediation; Those who have no hope of rectification or cannot complete the rectification in time must be submitted to local governments to be banned or closed.

According to statistics, since January 1 this year when the new Environmental Protection Law went into effect, the city\'s environmental protection system has filed and investigated over 200 environmental violation cases, of which 84 cases were administratively punished, 2 cases were sealed up and detained, 5 cases were limited to product or closed down for remediation, over 30 enterprises were submitted to the government and closed down, 34 cases were administratively detained including eight people detained, one consecutively punished, two suspected criminals. Recently, the Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau and the Municipal Public Security Bureau have jointly issued a document and carried out a special project to combat environmental crimes.

Yichang Environmental Protection Department said that, with the combined use of the 4 supporting methods according to the new Environmental Protection Law, they vigorously punched the environmental crimes with zero tolerance to maintain a pressing posture against environmental violations, thus effectively curbing the rise of environmental violations.

Since January 1 this year, Yichang Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau has publicly posted the environmental monitoring and enforcement information on the city’s official website according to law. At the same time the municipal website "Yichang China" has linked to the public to consciously accept supervision from the public and the media. This step adopted by the Yichang Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau has been acknowledged by the superior environmental protection department and aroused positive social responses. (Reporter Yang Jing)