Encourage people to blow whistle on polluters

The Ministry of Ecology and Environment, the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Ministry of Public Security have recently launched a joint probe into malpractices of two environmental testing companies, in Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces, which are suspected of providing false certification documents and forging environmental data.

The two companies have been found forging samples, tampering with the sampling time, fabricating experimental data, replacing analysis samples, etc, and issuing false monitoring reports to help polluting companies get through the environmental evaluation, according to a news release issued by the ministries. The ongoing joint investigation is expected to deter other environmental testing companies from following suit.

Such third-party watchdogs were initially introduced as a reform measure to reduce corruption of the government environmental protection departments. Previously the local governments were in charge of testing the samples of enterprises as well as giving a green light to the enterprises if the samples were found to meet the required standards. Now they are mainly responsible for inspecting the evaluation results provided by the environmental testing companies and making decisions accordingly.