On Feb 19, China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP) announced the issuance of five state standards on environmental protection. (MEP Notice No. 14 of 2014) These five standards lay a foundation for future regulatory development in soil and groundwater pollution prevention and remediation.
The five standards are listed below and they have been published by the China Environmental Science Press (CESP).
HJ 25.1-2014 Technical Guidelines for Environmental Site Investigation
HJ 25.2-2014 Technical Guidelines for Environmental Site Monitoring
HJ 25.3-2014 Technical Guidelines for Risk Assessment of Contaminated Sites
HJ 25.4-2014 Technical Guidelines for Site Soil Remediation
HJ 682-2014 Terms of Contaminated Sites
* Click to download the official documents. (in Chinese)
They are scheduled to come into force from July 1st, 2014. They provide technical guidance for carrying out site investigation of environment conditions, risk assessment, pollution control and remediation.
According to an official, there is no overarching legislation specific for soil and groundwater protection in China. Though the implementation of the five standards lack solid legal basis, the chemical industries should follow the principles stipulated in Environmental Protection of China (1989), and be fully aware of the nation’s relevant policies by studying the official normative documents such as Notice No.7 of 2013 issued by the General Office of the State Council and Notice No. 140 of 2012 issued by MEP.
In addition to regulatory and supervisory loopholes, it is unable to conduct substantial work immediately without competent technical experts and professionals, statistical data and technical equipment. Director-general of MEP's department of ecology said that as much as 10 trillion RMB could be invested to support the scheme, which is a vast sum of money in comparison to investment in air and water environmental protection.
A securities analyst believes soil remediation is an emerging market, and chemical, physical and biological transformation of polluted soil is an industry likely to see considerable growth in China in light of governmental prioritization of environmental issues. Promising enterprises involved in this line of business include CTI (SZ. 300012), a service provider of third-party inspection of soil remediation; Yonker (SZ.300187), an expert in soil remediation for heavy metal pollution and Techand (SZ.300197) which has a leading role in ecological environment construction industry.
