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Environmental watchdog barks, but who listens?

It is no surprise that the mainland's top environmental watchdog has bared its teeth again at local authorities and industrial polluters after a spate of water crises affecting millions of people.

Widespread pollution, a byproduct of decades-long breakneck economic growth, left more than 2 million people in Wuxi , Jiangsu province , without clean tap water for days last month. In the latest incident, it choked off drinking water supplies for more than 200,000 people in Shuyang county in the same province.

But despite nationwide crusades by the State Environmental Protection Administration (Sepa) over the past three years, which have attracted much fanfare on the mainland, few are impressed by the watchdog's vows to clean up the country's polluted waterways and lakes.

Even Sepa's outspoken deputy director, Pan Yue , who kicked off the latest clean-up campaign on Tuesday, has cautioned against expecting too much from the latest crackdown. It targets eight city and county governments, five industrial zones and 38 polluting enterprises in eight provinces believed to be sources of pollution.

'Crackdowns will not solve real problems without the backing of our political and legal systems,' he told the China Youth Daily.

Mr Pan has good reason to be sober-minded. Despite strong support from the public and media, Sepa's regulatory actions and crackdowns on industrial pollution since 2005 have been short-lived due to pressure from the mainland's powerful political and business interest groups.

Wang Canfa , an environmental expert at the China University of Political Science and Law, said the watchdog was forced to take temporary measures in the hope of curbing pollution and easing widespread discontent.

'All we have seen in the past few years has been one temporary [anti-pollution] measure after another, because of the rampant pollution disasters and rather grim prospects of meeting the national targets on cutting pollution and energy waste,' Professor Wang said.

'We need to set up a feasible mechanism to normalise what Sepa has been trying to do over the years.'

Huo Daishan , an environmental activist monitoring pollution of the Huai River, said Sepa's efforts had helped increase environmental awareness among the public, but Beijing's determination to clean up pollution had failed to be translated into action at the local level.

'It is already late to tackle pollution now, but it will be too late if we still don't take the fight against pollution seriously,' Mr Huo said. 'In the past, we attempted to portray how bad water crises would be, and now we have seen them all in front of our eyes.'

He said the crusade against pollution would not be successful without public participation. Local authorities often ignored laws and regulations which supported public involvement in making major decisions.

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