China's Ministry of Environmental Protection said it will tighten rules on environmental information disclosure by listed companies, after a copper smelter of the country's largest gold producer leaked acidic water and killed large numbers of fish.
In a document published on its website Tuesday, the ministry ordered local authorities at various levels to oversee that listed companies in their jurisdiction make timely, complete and accurate disclosure of environmental issues and release annual environmental reports. The authorities will look at the annual report, as well as the results of existent checks, to determine whether a listed company meets environmental protection standards or not.
The ministry said that it will publicize on its website on a quarterly basis a name list of enterprises that have passed environmental checks by the ministry as well as authorities at the provincial level. It will also release once a year the results of environmental monitoring on enterprises that have passed environmental checks.
The ministry said that some of the local authorities didn't do enough on-the-spot checks or failed to continue monitoring listed companies that had passed environment checks. In very rare cases, some of the environment watchdogs at the provincial level even violated examination rules, which severely disturbed the examination work on listed companies' environmental protection.
In May, the ministry said that among the 58 listed companies that had passed environment examinations in 2007 or 2008, 11 listed companies still have severe environmental problems.
The toxic spill from Zijinshan Copper Mine, owned by Zijin Mining Group Co, happened on July 3, but the company did not announce the incident until a press briefing nine days later on July 12.
The spill has contaminated a major waterway in East China's Fujian province, poisoning up to 1,890 tons of fish, according to local environmental authorities Monday. [Zijin's copper mine sewage contaminates river]
