VZCZCXRO6173
RR RUEHCN RUEHGH
DE RUEHGH #0797/01 3540216
ZNY EEEEE ZZH
R 200216Z DEC 07
FM AMCONSUL SHANGHAI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 6547
INFO RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING 1595
RUEHSH/AMCONSUL SHENYANG 1018
RUEHCN/AMCONSUL CHENGDU 1018
RUEHGZ/AMCONSUL GUANGZHOU 0988
RUEHHK/AMCONSUL HONG KONG 1149
RUCPDOC/USDOC WASHINGTON DC 0016
RUEAEPA/EPA WASHINGTON DC
RUEHIN/AIT TAIPEI 0836
RUEHGH/AMCONSUL SHANGHAI 7069

UNCLAS E F T O SECTION 01 OF 03 SHANGHAI 000797 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE ALSO FOR OES/I - COVINGTON 
EPA FOR INTERNATIONAL - NGUYEN AND MCASKILL 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: SENV PGOV ECON EIND CH
SUBJECT: JIANGSU ENVIRONMENTAL OFFICIALS HOLD SOME OPTIMISM ABOUT 
LAKE TAI CLEAN-UP PROSPECTS 
 
REF: SHANGHAI 760; SHANGHAI 483; SHANGHAI 420 
 
¶1.  (SBU)  Summary.  Congenoffs met with Jiangsu Provincial 
Academy of Environmental Sciences Senior Engineer and Vice 
Director Wang Hua and Jiangsu Provincial Environmental 
Protection Department Vice Director Zhu Deming on November 28 to 
discuss Lake Tai (Tai Hu) pollution clean-up prospects and 
prospects for greater use of environmental protection criteria 
in performance evaluations for local government units, 
government officials and Communist Party cadre.  Both expressed 
guarded optimism that significant numbers of water-polluting 
factories on the shores of Lake Tai will cease lakeside 
operations in 2008, although many may relocate to less 
economically developed parts of the province and country.  The 
October 2007 promotion and transfer of Jiangsu Province Party 
Secretary Li Yuanchao, who had committed the Province to 
 
SIPDIS 
aggressively cleaning up Lake Tai in the near term, to the 
Politburo in Beijing as head of the Party's Organization 
Department provides the Party with a means to enforce Lake Tai 
clean up initatives and other environmental protection 
priorities.  Jiangsu Province leaders are resolute to clean up 
Lake Tai, even if at the cost of a decrease in provincial 
economic output, the two environmental officials said.  End 
summary. 
 
Lake Tai - Big, Important, Seriously Polluted 
 
¶2.  (SBU)  Lake Tai, west of Shanghai, is China's third-largest 
freshwater lake (2,250 square kilometers) and now one of the 
worst polluted lakes in China.  Major causes of water pollution 
include poorly regulated discharges from industries -- more than 
8,500 chemical factories are located in the Lake Tai watershed 
-- and untreated wastewater from urban areas, pig farms and 
other agricultural activities , with nitrates and phosphorous 
playing particularly important roles in the pollution mix.  More 
than one-fourth of China's textile factories are in Jiangsu 
Province, local officials say, with many of them also in the 
Lake Tai watershed.  The May 2007 massive outbreak of blue-green 
algae in Lake Tai resulted in cutting off the drinking water 
supply to the 4 million residents of the city of Wuxi.  Jiangsu 
environmental officials attributed the severity of this year's 
outbreak to "70 percent natural factors and 30 percent human 
factors," namely, the lowest water level in 50 years, excessive 
heat, and excessive pollution from factories, agricultural waste 
and human waste. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) Dr. Wang and Director Zhu, both of whom traveled to 
the United States in our FY 2007 as recipients of State 
Department International Visitor program awards, attributed some 
revised environmental protection policies under consideration in 
Jiangsu Province to observations of U.S. environmental 
protection policies and enforcement.  In particular, the 
province may move to impose fines on a daily vice occasional 
basis for excessive pollution emitters.  Even so, they foresee a 
need to promote the development of true non-government 
organizations to accurately reflect the common people's 
aspirations for cleaner air and water and bring added pressure 
on government units to enforce China's environmental protection 
rules.  A number of government-organized non-government 
organizations (GONGOs) in China which have spoken out on 
environmental issues remain under the control of government 
paymasters and thus do not truly represent the common people's 
views, they observed. 
 
4  (SBU)  The October 2007 Jiangsu Taihu Water Pollution 
Treatment Protocol brokered by the Jiangsu Provincial Government 
constitutes a crucial step if Lake Tai pollution problems are to 
be successfully addressed, they continued.  Beyond the important 
surge of funding to be made available for pollution control and 
cleanup, the agreement assigns distinct environmental protection 
responsibilities to multiple government agencies.  Provincial 
and local water treatment departments had taken a leading role 
in attempts to deal with Lake Tai's massive blue-algae bloom 
this year (refs).  But with multiple agencies previously told 
they had environmental protection as an important goal but no 
specific assignment of responsibilities, a situation of "three 
monks with no water to drink" had occurred, i.e., many agencies 
expected other agencies to take the lead in addressing Lake 
Tai's problems.  Now clearer responsibilities have been assigned 
to local agricultural departments, industrial supervision 
departments and others, and responsibility for protecting rivers 
 
SHANGHAI 00000797  002 OF 003 
 
 
in the Lake Tai watershed had also been clearly assigned.  Most 
effectively, future promotion prospects for officials has been 
better linked to performance of environmental protection 
responsibilities. 
 
¶5.  (SBU)  As part of an important shift from rewarding the 
quantity of economic growth to the rewarding the quality of 
economic growth, performance of local government units in 
Jiangsu Province will henceforth be more closely linked to two 
environmental indexes, one for forest preservation and one for 
environmental quality.  The latter will include component factor 
scores for potable water quality, air quality, water quality, 
noise pollution abatement, and other factors.  Out of a possible 
total index score of 100 points, a government unit must score at 
least 80 points, or unit leaders will face reassignment to less 
desirable positions.  Because of the massive blue algae bloom in 
the current performance cycle, 20 points have already been lost 
by many units for water quality protection.  In this performance 
evaluation cycle, unit leaders must receive training on 
environmental protection topics to avoid potential dismissal for 
the blue-algae problems. 
 
¶6.  (SBU)  In addition to the visible and noxious blue-algae 
problem in Lake Tai, Jiangsu Province also faces prominent water 
quality problems along the Yangtze and Huai Rivers, Wang 
explained.  Textile factories are significant sources of Lake 
Tai pollution, and at present only 15-20 percent are estimated 
to be able to meet more stringent 2008 provincial effluent 
discharge restrictions for the Lake Tai watershed area, which 
were only issued in October 2007.  For instance, the chemical 
oxygen demand standard had been 180 micrograms per liter until 
2006, when it was lowered to 100; in 2008, the COD restriction 
for dyeing and textile factories in the Lake Tai watershed will 
be further reduced to 60 micrograms per liter.  The provincial 
government wants factories in the Lake Tai watershed to either 
rapidly invest in pollution control capabilities, which would 
either squeeze very thin profit margins for many or force them 
to raise prices in a competitive market, or relocate to other 
areas outside the Lake Tai watershed.  Wang and Zhu predicted 
that some companies will in fact choose to relocate their 
factories to areas in the less economically developed northern 
part of Jiangsu Province, such as in or near the port city of 
Lianyungang, while others will choose to cease operations 
altogether. 
 
¶7.  (SBU)  Nonetheless, provincial party and government 
officials are resolute in their determination to clean up Lake 
Tai, even if provincial GDP must slightly drop, Wang and Zhu 
continued.  Former Provincial Party Secretary Li Yuanchao had 
secured broad commitments from the Party and government units to 
address this urgent issue, placing this environmental clean-up 
goal clearly in the context of "achieving a moderately well-off 
society" and "scientific development," two important Party goals 
across China.  Li's successor will be bound by the commitments 
made during his tenure in Jiangsu - and Li's new role as head of 
the Party's national Organization Department in Beijing provides 
Li with means to enforce this goal via selection and promotion 
of personnel based on their performance. 
 
Environmental Issues Prominent in Citizens' Petitions 
 
¶8.  (SBU)  Wang and Zhu commented that while the absolute number 
of citizen petitions to file complaints or calls for redress in 
Jiangsu Province has been decreasing, the share within the total 
based on pollution or other environment-related issues is 
increasing rapidly, even faster than the province's high annual 
GDP growth rate.  (Note:  According to the Jiangsu Statistical 
Bureau, provincial GDP growth was 14.5 percent in 2005, 14.9 
percent in 2006, and 15.0 percent through the third quarter of 
¶2007.  End note.)  Furthermore, they said, National People's 
Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference 
delegates are increasingly raising concerns about pollution and 
environmental protection in their respective deliberations. 
 
An Environmental Protection Role in the Supply Chain? 
 
¶9.  (SBU)  Finally, Wang said that environmental activists 
(location and nationality not specified) will soon ask some 
large companies that source significant amount of goods from 
China, such as WalMart and The Gap, to speak to their suppliers 
 
SHANGHAI 00000797  003 OF 003 
 
 
about corporate responsibility for environmental stewardship and 
purchasing company expectations of their suppliers with regards 
to pollution control. 
JARRETT