Find out the problem of air pollution in 284 thousand key areas in 5 years
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As of this year, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment has carried out air pollution supervision and assistance in autumn and winter for five consecutive years. In the past five years, it has helped local governments find 284,000 problems, comprehensively found out the environmental problems of air pollution in key areas, and fully guaranteed the successful completion of the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" pollution prevention and control target.
□ Our reporter Qi Jianrong
With the recent issuance and implementation of the Plan for Comprehensive Control of Air Pollution in Autumn and Winter in 2021-2022 (hereinafter referred to as the Action Plan), the action to combat air pollution in autumn and winter in key areas in 2021-2022 has been fully launched. According to the requirements of the Action Plan, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment will continue to carry out atmospheric supervision and assistance in key areas such as Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and surrounding areas to ensure the double reduction of heavily polluted weather and PM2.5 concentration.
According to Li Tianwei, inspector of the Law Enforcement Bureau of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, as of this year, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment has carried out air pollution supervision and assistance in autumn and winter for five consecutive years. In the past five years, it has helped local governments find 284,000 problems, comprehensively found out the environmental problems of air pollution in key areas, and fully guaranteed the successful completion of the "Thirteenth Five-Year Plan" pollution prevention and control target.
Li Tianwei pointed out that this autumn and winter, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment will send a professional supervision and assistance team to strengthen supervision and law enforcement around key areas such as automatic monitoring and pollutant discharge permit, so as to do nothing to disturb law-abiding people and carry out precise strikes against offenders.
Found 284,000 problems in 5 years.
Suzhou Wanshen Flour Products Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Wanshen Company), located in Dongshili Circular Economy Park, Yongqiao District, Suzhou City, Anhui Province, mainly produces starch and has a 60t/h coal-fired boiler. According to the requirements of EIA approval, the boiler exhaust gas of Wanshen Company needs to be treated by SNCR denitration, bag dust removal and desulfurization wet electric dust removal integrated device, and then discharged through a new chimney equipped with automatic monitoring equipment.
However, in September this year, the law enforcement officers of the air quality improvement supervision and assistance working group in key areas sent by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment found during on-site inspection that part of the exhaust gas of Wanshen Company was not treated by the integrated desulfurization, wet electrostatic precipitation device, but was directly discharged through the abandoned old chimney without automatic monitoring equipment. This kind of behavior of Wanshen Company is a typical way to evade supervision and discharge air pollutants to pollute the environment.
Coincidentally. At the same time, Fuxin Liaoning Zhonghui Biotechnology Co., Ltd. stole air pollutants through emergency pipelines, Jinzhong Shanxi De Sheng Da Chemical Co., Ltd. stopped pollution control facilities without authorization, and air pollutants were discharged directly. A number of problems such as air pollutants discharged by Tangshan Rongyi Coking and Gas Making Co., Ltd. were verified.
In order to promote the continuous improvement of air quality in key areas, in early September, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment sent 16 professional groups and 46 regular groups to go deep into key areas to carry out air quality improvement supervision and assistance. Including Wanshen Company, Fuxin Zhonghui Biological, Jinzhong De Sheng Da, Tangshan Rongyi and other enterprises, were all found on the spot during this supervision and assistance.
According to Li Tianwei, the atmospheric supervision and assistance organized by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment began as early as 2017 and has lasted for five years this year.
"Since 2017, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment has coordinated the system-wide eco-environmental law enforcement team and backbone forces, and creatively organized and implemented atmospheric supervision and assistance in key areas." Li Tianwei said that through the investigation of more than 40 key special tasks, a total of 284,000 problems have been found in local areas, the environmental problems of air pollution in key areas have been comprehensively clarified, and the gap and crux of the formulation of policies, regulations and standards and the landing of tasks and measures have been identified, which has promoted the resolution of a large number of gas-related environmental problems.
According to Li Tianwei, since the 14th Five-Year Plan, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment has optimized and adjusted the supervision and assistance mechanism. This summer, this new mechanism was applied to the supervision and assistance of ozone pollution prevention and control in summer, focusing on key regional cities such as Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and its surrounding areas, Fenwei Plain, and digging into key industries such as steel, coking, petrochemical, chemical and building materials, and found a large number of outstanding problems such as by-pass emissions, non-installation or abnormal operation of pollution control facilities, abnormal operation of automatic monitoring or fraud, and assigned more than 10,000 local gas-related environmental problems, thus realizing the new mechanism.
According to Wu Xianfeng, deputy director of the Atmospheric Environment Department of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, since 2017, the air quality in key areas has been continuously improved through the implementation of the autumn and winter atmospheric attack. Among them. In autumn and winter of 2020, the concentration of PM2.5 in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and its surrounding areas and Fenwei Plain decreased by 37.5% and 35.1% respectively compared with the same period of 2016, and the days of heavy pollution decreased by 70% and 65% respectively. The Yangtze River Delta has basically eliminated the heavy pollution weather.
Heavy polluted weather still happens from time to time.
The Action Plan jointly issued by 10 ministries and commissions including the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, the National Development and Reform Commission and the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and the governments of seven provinces (cities) including Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei shows that in autumn and winter of 2020, the concentration of fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei and its surrounding areas and Fenwei Plain showed a downward trend compared with the same period in 2016, and the people’s sense of blue sky acquisition and happiness were significantly improved.
At the same time, the Action Plan also pointed out that although positive results have been achieved in autumn and winter, the results of air quality improvement are still not stable. Heavy polluted weather in autumn and winter in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei and surrounding areas, Fenwei Plain and other areas is still high and frequent, which not only affects the people’s health, but also directly affects the completion of the air quality improvement objectives and tasks in the 14 th Five-Year Plan.
Liu Bingjiang, director of the Department of Atmospheric Environment of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, said that although China’s atmospheric environment has been improving continuously and rapidly, there is still a certain gap between the people’s expectations for blue sky, white clouds and twinkling stars and the goal of building a beautiful China. At present, PM2.5 pollution has not been fundamentally controlled; Ozone concentration is slowly increasing, which has become an important factor affecting air quality after PM2.5. Under unfavorable meteorological conditions, the process of heavily polluted weather still occurs from time to time. In addition, although the structural adjustment has made positive progress, the industrial structure dominated by heavy chemicals, the energy structure dominated by coal and the transportation structure dominated by highways have not been fundamentally changed, and the long-term, complex and arduous atmospheric environmental problems still exist.
This year is the first year of the 14th Five-Year Plan. The "Action Plan" pointed out that in the first half of this year, the product output and coal consumption of the "two high" industries rebounded significantly, and the pressure for continuous improvement of atmospheric environmental quality increased. According to Wu Xianfeng, this year’s tough action is mainly aimed at reducing heavy polluted weather and reducing PM2.5 concentration. On the basis of inheriting the effective work in the past, we will stick to the same direction and continue our efforts; Adhere to precise pollution control, scientific pollution control, and pollution control according to law, and further optimize and adjust the scope and measures of tackling key problems; Insist on treating both the symptoms and root causes, promote the adjustment of industry, energy and transportation structure, strengthen regional joint prevention and control, and actively respond to heavily polluted weather; At the same time, scientifically and reasonably set the average concentration of PM2.5 and the target of heavy pollution days in autumn and winter in relevant cities; While tackling the problem of atmospheric control, we will coordinate the stable operation of social economy and the protection of people’s livelihood, and focus on ensuring the supply of energy such as coal and electricity and ensuring warm winter.
Wu Xianfeng said that in 2021, the central air pollution prevention and control fund specially arranged subsidies for clean heating operation, and all of them have been distributed to local governments to ensure people’s warmth for the winter.
Investigating and handling nearly 200,000 illegal cases.
According to Li Tianwei, from 2016 to 2020, a total of 193,300 illegal cases involving gas environment were investigated and dealt with nationwide, with a total fine of 14.051 billion yuan. In the past five years, the proportion of gas-related administrative punishment cases and fines to all administrative punishment cases and fines has increased year by year. Among them, the proportion of gas-related administrative punishment cases to all administrative punishment cases has increased from 11.7% in 2016 to 36.5% in 2020, and the amount of fines has increased from 22.9% to 30.0%, especially the number of outstanding cases such as seizure, production restriction, administrative detention and suspected crime has increased significantly.
"Today’s autumn and winter atmospheric supervision and assistance will coordinate the two tasks." Li Tianwei said that one is to promote the task of tackling air pollution control in autumn and winter; The other is to timely investigate the implementation of emergency emission reduction measures according to the forecast and early warning of heavy pollution weather, and promote the "peak cutting and frequency reduction" of heavy pollution weather in autumn and winter.
Li Tianwei also revealed that the Ministry of Ecology and Environment is also deepening the application of "Clairvoyance" atmospheric environment remote supervision while organizing the national ecological environment law enforcement team to conduct on-site investigation directly at the ministerial level. "Analyze the high-value areas of fine particles and ozone concentration, identify the fire points and dust sources of straw burning, and push these alarm information to the local authorities. The local ecological and environmental departments will organize verification, give full play to local enthusiasm, and implement territorial supervision responsibilities." Li Tianwei said that "Clairvoyance" divided 428,000 square kilometers of 39 cities in key areas into 60,000 3km×3km grids by using satellite remote sensing, ground micro-stations and big data, and screened 5,000 hot-spot grids with high PM2.5 concentration for "kilometer-level" monitoring, and further accurately identified 1,000 500m×500m small grids for "100 m-level" monitoring.
According to Li Tianwei, since 2018, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment has pushed 65,000 pieces of abnormal environmental information to the ecological and environmental departments of 39 cities in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei and its surrounding areas, and instructed local ecological and environmental departments to investigate 75,000 enterprises and found 51,000 gas-related environmental problems.
Li Tianwei pointed out that in autumn and winter this year, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment will continue to stick to the same direction and make unremitting efforts, anchor the goal of improving air quality, especially the goal of basically eliminating heavily polluted weather, continue to organize supervision and assistance work in key areas, and promote the prevention and control of air pollution in key areas during the 14 th Five-Year Plan period.