China saw its discharge of sulfur dioxide in the first half of this year reach 12.63 million tons, a year-on-year drop of 0.88 percent, according to a state report published on Tuesday.

However, the emission of chemical oxygen demand (COD), a measure of water pollution, rose by 0.24 percent to 6.9 million tons in the first six months of this year, said the report jointly issued by the State Administration of Environment Protection (SEPA), National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) and National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC).

Zhao Hualin, a SEPA official, attributed the decrease in sulfur dioxide mainly to the installation of more desulfurizing facilities in coal-fire power plants.

From January to June, China saw 39 million-kilowatts of coal-fueled power generators install and operate desulfurizing facilities, raising their proportion against the total existing coal power plants from 30 percent last year to a current level of 36 percent, Zhao said.

Small coal-fired power plants with a total generation capacity of 5.5 million kilowatts were also closed to trim down the sulfur dioxide emissions, he said.

The daily sewage handling capacity in cities also increased by seven million tons in the first six months and the restructuring work on heavy-polluting industries, such as paper and detergent making companies, also made progress, he said.

"But China still faces grave pollution control tasks this year, and the most prominent problem lies in some local cadres, who are still blind to the importance of the scientific development model," he noted.

The economy has grown at an unexpectedly rapid rate in some local areas, mostly at the cost of the environment, and the supervision departments at the grass-roots level are barely functioning, he said.

The unsound legal system regarding environmental protection and insufficient input in pollutant-cutting facilities are also factors frustrating the pollution control efforts, he added.

Targeting the growing COD discharge, the SEPA ordered its local branches to further tighten their grip over highly water-polluting chemical, brewing and printing industries, especially paper mills, in the second half of this year.

Paper mills employing substandard pulp processors or using waste paper as raw material with an annual production less than 10,000 tons will be shut down, the administration warned.

It also called for the construction of sewage plants and a supporting pipeline network in cities to be stepped up.

(Xinhua News Agency August 22, 2007)