(Reporters: Jin Guiman and Yang Jing; correspondent: Luo Jitao) The city environmental protection department has taken the fourth action to monitor the water quality from all distribution points, as another effort made to continuously improve the water quality of the Yangtze River. Since November 23, the city has launched campaign to improve the water quality in the Yichang section of the Yangtze River(hereinafter referred to as the “campaign”), in accordance with the general thought of “target-oriented, unit-controlled, the production and sewage discharges constrained and systematic management”. The aim is to make sure that the water quality of every unit of the river can fully reach the standard, and then facilitate the overall water management of the mainstream and branches of the Yangtze River. The third monitoring results of the Yangtze River section show that the (left) section water quality of Yunchi reached level II, and water quality of five branches also reached the average standard; the water quality of monitoring points from the Yichang-Wanzhou Railway Bridge to Yunchi (left) all reached level II.

　　On December 4th, Vice Mayor Liu Jianxin presided over the dispatch meeting of continually improving water quality of the Yangtze River, and called on all relevant departments to take effective measures to cope with the environmental pollution of the Yangtze River. He also stressed that it is important to resolutely implement the important instructions in terms of strengthening ecological protection of the River given by Jiang Chaoliang, who is the secretary of provincial Party committee, and Wang Xiaodong, who is the acting governor of Hubei Province. Combined with the ongoing environmental protection supervision made by the central government, the improvement of water quality in Yangtze River must be effectively promoted.

　　Acting upon the requirements made in “The Action Plan of Continually Improving the Water Quality of Yangtze River (From Nanjinguan to Yunchi Section) ”, the relevant departments of the city have taken immediate action to investigate the estuaries of major tributaries of the Yangtze River, sewage draining outlets of living quarters of towns, of industrial parks and sewage enterprises, of sewage treatment plants and of large-scale livestock farms as well. In the meantime, combined with the four major actions taken by the city's environmental protection departments, namely,  “comprehensively investigating unlicensed sewage, completely removing illegal sewage practice, severely cracking down the practice of “two excesses”(wastewater discharges exceeding the standard and amount), quickly handling the cases of environmental pollution and seriously punishing the polluters”, relevant departments are investigating the enterprises discharging sewage water along the Yangtze River.

　　Since the start of the campaign, the relevant departments have sampling monitored the Yangtze River and its tributaries of the 22 sections, the 79 sewage outfalls along the Yangtze River. According to the monitoring results, the Yichang Water Pollution Prevention Leading Group Office issued 20 action bulletins and notices of supervision to force the main responsible organizations to take corrective measures. Relevant departments need to take on-site verification on the river sections and the sewage outfalls, take verification on the sewage outfalls that discharge excessive pollutants; quickly find out the reasons for the pollution in those tributaries, and lock the sources of pollution, and take targeted management and measures; to investigate and prosecute enterprises which are involved in excessive sewage discharges and punish them seriously according to law, then put these enterprises into the environmental credit evaluation “blacklist”; to ban the methods of throwing manure and fence breeding; to shut down the enterprises involving in serious pollution cases according to the procedure. In the meantime, responsible bodies are required to step up the efforts to prevent water pollution within the prescribed time. They are required to completely ban “ten small-scale” enterprises, to undertake the sewage treatment plant upgrading program and pipe network constructions, in order to improve the quality of water environment in the district.