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Interpretations on Measures on the Administration of Environmental Monitoring--Identifying the Positioning of Environmental Monitoring and Strengthening the Administration on Environmental Monitoring
2010-11-08
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Interpretations on Measures on the Administration of Environmental Monitoring--Identifying the Positioning of Environmental Monitoring and Strengthening the Administration on Environmental Monitoring

I. Having a deep understanding on the significance of the Regulation

The Regulation has further improved the environmental protection laws and regulations, filled up the gap in legislation on environmental monitoring, and provided a clearer regulation basis for advancing the environmental monitoring groundwork and the organization of relevant innovations.

1. The Regulation is an important move to advance the historical transformations

Efforts should be made to size up the situation and take the initiative to make reforms, in order to realize the three historical transformations. In order to pay equal attention to economic growth and environmental protection, environmental monitoring work should be viewed from the perspective of the whole social and economic development situation, and environmental monitoring work should go beyond environmental protection and be integrated into the overall economic and social development. In order to enable environmental protection to keep pace with economic growth, efforts should be made to highlight the characteristics of environmental monitoring of being active, precautious and preventive. In order to adopt comprehensive measures to protect the environment, efforts should be made to highlight the technological factors during environmental protection.

2. The Regulation is one of the major supports for advancing energy conservation and emissions reduction

Environmental monitoring system is one of the three major supports for reduction of the total amount of pollutants. Scientific emissions reduction indicators rely on monitoring approaches for measurement, and scientific evaluation of emissions reduction relies on monitoring data for supports. SEPA Administrator Zhou Shengxian noted that to establish an advanced environmental monitoring pre-warning system needs accurate and highly representative data, scientific methods and timely data transmission; it also needs to reflect the overall environmental quality conditions and changing trends, track timely the changes in emissions from pollution sources, accurately pre-warn and timely respond to environmental emergencies, and meet the needs for environmental management.

The essential task for building an environmental monitoring system is to address the institutional and mechanism problems that has beset and constrained the environmental monitoring work for long. The Regulation has tidied up some aspects once governed by administrative instructions, including the nature, positioning, administration, criteria, and punishments for environmental monitoring, and provided an all-dimensional institutional framework for establishing an advanced environmental monitoring pre-warning system.

3. The Regulation is an important step to improve the environmental legal system.

Efforts lag far behind in enacting laws and regulations on environmental monitoring, and there has been no unified and special law or regulation on environmental monitoring. The provisions on environmental monitoring in ongoing laws are individual and there are overlaps in defining environmental monitoring in some laws and regulations. The lack of relevant laws and regulations has seriously affected the authority and standardization of the administration on environmental monitoring and become one of the major barriers for the development in this regard.

4. The Regulation is the practical need for reforming the management institutions and innovating the operating mechanisms

Although laws and regulations nowadays identify the responsibility of the environmental protection departments for unified supervision as well as the responsibilities of relevant departments concerning environmental monitoring and division of their labors, the administration on environmental monitoring has not been unified. The accurate positioning of environmental monitoring work in the environmental protection system and the detailed provisions on sharing information in this Regulation shall be helpful for streamlining the relations of parities concerned and fundamentally solving problems concerning the institutions and mechanisms on environmental monitoring.

5. The Regulation is the important basis for developing Regulations on the Administration of Environmental Monitoring.

State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) has worked on the possibility of laws on environmental monitoring since 2002. But considering the legislative procedures and periods and following the principle of being pragmatic, SEPA began by formulating regulations on the environmental monitoring by environmental protection departments, and introduced such a departmental regulation. The Regulation has, on the one hand, filled up the gap in laws in the area of environmental monitoring and on the other hand, laid a solid foundation for developing Regulations on the Administration of Environmental Monitoring.

II. Mastering the connotation of the Regulation

Attention should be paid to the following six key points in order to master the connotation of the Regulation.

1. Correctly understanding the legal status of environmental monitoring

The Regulation has emphasized the legal nature of environmental monitoring from the following three aspects.

First, the Regulation reiterates and extends the connotation of environmental monitoring, including monitoring on environmental quality, monitoring on pollution sources for supervision purpose, monitoring in environmental emergencies, and other environmental monitoring activities including providing monitoring data for environmental management activities such as survey and evaluation of environmental conditions. These environmental monitoring activities are government behaviors, represent the public interests, and are public affairs aiming for better exercise of public powers.

Second, the Regulation provides the legal validity of the environmental monitoring results. Environmental monitoring data obtained in accordance with relevant laws are the basis for environmental statistics, verification of the pollution discharge declarations, collection of pollution discharge fees, environmental enforcement, and accountability evaluation for meeting environmental targets. The environmental management work has for years had overlaps, and the environmental monitoring data, environmental statistics data and pollution declaration data are contracted, which have resulted in waste of monitoring resources and affected the standardization and unification of environmental management. The Regulation provides the validity of environmental monitoring data for the purpose of changing the situation that data come from many sources.

Third, the Regulation has emphasized that environmental monitoring activities and facilities are under its protection. It has provisions on the enterprises’ violations and identifies the punishments for such violations in accordance to their severity. It also provides punishments for damages to environmental monitoring facilities.

2. Shaping the basic situation for unified supervision

Unifying the supervision on environmental monitoring work has always been the poor aspect in the environmental protection work, due to causes such as unclear division of responsibilities for different departments and the poor development of the environmental monitoring undertaking. So, the Regulation has provisions on the following three aspects.

First, unifying the standards. The Regulation provides that State Administration for Environmental Protection is responsible for formulating unified national technological standards and specifications on environmental monitoring. Provincial environmental protection departments may develop local technological specifications on environmental monitoring for items not covered by national standards and specifications. For the moment, relevant departments engaged in environmental monitoring have different industrial norms, so the monitoring data provided by them are not comparable. To unify the technological standards and specifications is helpful for making the monitoring data from different sources comparable. It is necessary in the next step to tidy up ongoing technological standards and specifications in this regard: first, to abolish and amend in a timely fashion the inappropriate specifications on environmental monitoring and integrating the inconsistent ones; second, to focus on the emissions reduction targets, and formulate relevant standards and technological specifications on automatic monitoring of pollution sources and transmission of environmental information; third, to do a good job in integrating relevant technological standards and specifications developed by different departments and industries.

Second, unifying information sharing. The Regulation provides that environmental protection departments at or above the county level shall share environmental monitoring information on pollution accidents and environmental quality conditions within in their respective administrative jurisdictions. Regulations on sharing environmental information in previous environmental laws and regulations were too general and environmental monitoring data came from many sources, which undermined the authority, seriousness and public trust in environmental information shared by government departments. So, to unify the sharing of environmental monitoring information, a unified environmental monitoring database shall be established and a mechanism shall be shaped for the governments and environmental departments at all levels to share environmental monitoring data.

Third, unifying labels. It means working out labels which have distinctive colors, accurate meanings and are easily recognizable.

3. Separating the administration from technologies concerning environmental monitoring

The relationship between the administration and technologies concerning environmental monitoring has never been defined in a scientific manner for a long term. This can be justified as follows. First, administration has been highlighted and technologies have been undervalued. Environmental monitoring stations have had the responsibilities for both administration and provision of technologies, so that the functions of government and public institutions are not separated, affecting the overall efficiency. Moreover, environmental monitoring technologies have been introduced for a short time and outdated, so some of the hotspot environmental problems are devoid of effective technological supports. Second, the development has been highlighted and quality control has been undervalued. Environmental monitoring data cannot be quality-assured in some areas. Third, monitoring results have are highlighted and processes have been undervalued. Great attention has been paid to the filling-up and summary of analysis and data of laboratory samples in environmental monitoring, but there has been no unified regulation and effective methods for collection and storage of samples, pre-treatment and data transmission, which have affected the reliability of the monitoring data.

The Regulation has defined the responsibilities of environmental protection departments and their affiliated environmental monitoring agencies. In general, the competent environmental protection department is responsible for the administration over environmental monitoring, and its affiliated environmental monitoring agency provides technological supports, so that the functions of competent environmental protection department and environmental monitoring agency are reasonably divided. To separate the administration from technologies means the need of an administration agency for environmental monitoring. An administration agency for environmental monitoring that exercises unified supervision shall be established at national level at a proper timing, and local area shall also establish corresponding supervision agencies or divisions and offices with such functions. State Administration for Environmental Protection would also consider establishing cross-region environmental monitoring agencies directly under SEPA for regions and river basins suffering from lingering and prominent environmental problems.

4. Strengthening the development and management of environmental monitoring network

The Regulation provides the contributing factors of an environmental monitoring network, that is, the environmental factors monitoring sites (sections). It also provides the developers and operators of the environmental monitoring networks.

To work harder on developing environmental monitoring networks needs unified planning, deciding the investment and management bodies according to the routine powers, and reasonably identifying the management and operation modes of different networks. State Administration for Environmental Protection shall develop a national environmental monitoring network and make its coverage more scientific. National environmental monitoring network shall consider the overall national conditions and implementation of international environmental conventions, integrate and optimize the monitoring sites and sections for ambient air, surface water, soils and acid rain, and reflect the status quo and changing trends of nationwide environmental qualities. To establish provincial, municipal and county-level environmental monitoring networks should follow the principle of holding local areas responsible for development and operation. While choosing and optimizing the sites in local environmental monitoring networks, features of the ecological systems in the regions concerned shall be outlined, with priorities and differences. Monitoring sites in national environmental monitoring network may be included in local networks, and used and evaluated from the perspectives of national and local levels.

5. Strengthening the whole-process quality management on environmental monitoring

The Regulation has proposed for the first time the concept of exercising whole-process quality management on environmental monitoring, reiterated that the environmental monitoring stations shall be equipped with corresponding monitoring capacities in accordance with their construction standards. It also has provisions on the training, evaluation and taking-up post of environmental monitoring technicians, and emphasizes the responsibilities of competent environmental protection departments and environmental monitoring stations on quality management.

Environmental protection departments and monitoring stations at all levels should shoulder their responsibilities on environmental monitoring quality management, set up relevant systems on quality management of monitoring data, and work harder to enable that monitoring samples are under control and traceable during the whole process including the collection, storage, transportation, pre-treatment, laboratory analysis, data collection and comprehensive analysis of samples. 

6. Identifying the environmental monitoring responsibilities and obligations of enterprises

It is the responsibility of competent environmental protection departments and also of pollution discharging enterprises to monitor the pollution discharging conditions. At present, the enterprises’ monitoring capacities on pollution sources are poor and slow progress is being made. It is an arduous work to monitor pollution discharging conditions of enterprises, which involves many aspects, so satisfactory monitoring results are hard to obtain if relying solely on environmental monitoring agencies affiliated to environmental protection departments. The Regulation has an unprecedented provision that pollution discharging enterprises shall be responsible for providing emissions data for environmental protection departments on a regular basis and ensuring that the data are accurate, authentic and timely, and that these enterprises shall monitor their own pollution discharge conditions. To implement this provision means enterprises with capacities establish their own monitoring agencies, whose monitoring capacity and data effectiveness are evaluated and certified regularly by environmental monitoring stations affiliated to provincial competent environmental protection departments. Those enterprises without such capacities shall entrust qualified environmental monitoring agencies to do the monitoring. In terms of the pollution discharge of enterprises, the environmental monitoring agencies affiliated to the environmental protection departments shall change from performing monitoring tasks to supervising the self-monitoring of enterprises.

The enterprise monitoring agencies and other social monitoring agencies are integral parts of the environmental monitoring system. Strict mechanisms should be established on the access conditions to environmental monitoring, its supervision and phase-out. Efforts should be made to include the social monitoring forces, discard the environmental monitoring in a narrow sense and shape the concept of monitoring in a larger picture.

III. Vigorously advancing the enforcement of the Regulation

Environmental monitoring administration departments and environmental monitoring agencies at all levels should seize the rare opportunity for developing environmental monitoring work, seriously organize the publicity of the Regulation and enforce relevant provisions.

1. Great attention should be paid to and good organization is need for learning the Regulation. Local environmental protection departments at all levels should strengthen the studies of the Regulation by the staff in their offices especially in relevant offices, and correct the obscure and incorrect understanding of environmental management staff on environmental monitoring.

2. Efforts should be made to strengthen leadership and division of responsibilities and enforce the Regulation article by article. Being limited by the length of departmental regulations, the Regulation is not able to elaborate on the environmental monitoring data management, the information sharing methods, the management of environmental monitoring network, and the qualifications of environmental monitoring agencies. Detailed rules of implementation should be developed as soon as possible. Environmental protection departments and monitoring stations should seriously study their shortages and problems in accordance with the Regulation, and enforce them article by article.

3. Efforts should be made to consider the overall situation and highlight the priorities in order to ensure the effectiveness of energy conservation and emissions reduction. The enforcement of the Regulation should be considered in the overall environmental protection situation and the first priority should be given to building the "three major systems" for emissions reduction and the advanced pre-warning system for environmental monitoring. Efforts should be made to secure supports by local governments, gain favorable conditions in terms of policies, capitals and rank of talents, and seriously strengthen the groundwork and special capacity building for environmental monitoring.

4. More efforts should be made in publicity to enterprises through a variety of forms and by highlighting the publicity effectiveness. On the one hand, publicity should be made to enterprises through news reports and distribution of materials. On the other hand, environmental monitoring requirements should be considered during the efforts in approval of projects, routine supervision and policy and financial supports. Enterprises shall be seriously handled in accordance with relevant provisions if they do not install as required on-line monitoring equipment for pollutant sources, do not monitor their own pollution discharging conditions or block or interfere with the environmental monitoring work.