Chinese cement factory takes ministry to court in pollution battle
A cement plant in Harbin, Heilongjiang province, has taken the environment ministry to court, after its approval to operate was rejected following complaints by residents.
Harbin Xiaoling Cement’s representatives told the First Intermediate People’s Court in Beijing yesterday the decision would force the company to close.
They say the ministry was wrong to overrule a decision by the local authorities in 2011 that granted approval for production at the plant.
The ministry acted after complaints by residents who said the chronic noise and dust pollution had become unbearable.
The residents had petitioned against the plant, arguing the 2011 approval should not have been granted as it had failed to relocate residents living within 500 metres as promised in an environmental review when it expanded production in 2009.
The plant says it should not need to relocate the residents as it was built in 1932 under Japanese occupation – before any of the residents moved to the area.
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“The plant is just across the road from my home. I do not dare even to open the window, or everything would be covered in the dust,” said Wang Xinhua, one of seven residents invited by the court to participate in the hearing as a “third party”.
The seven residents behind the petition include one who lives just four metres from the plant’s boundaries.
They told the South China Morning Post that initially more residents had been protesting against the company but most were pressured into silence.
At first, local environmental authorities turned a blind eye to their petition, with the provincial environmental bureau rejecting their application to publish an environmental review of the company’s expansion project.
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But their endeavour paid off when they complained to the environment ministry in July 2015, with the ministry agreeing to scrap the approval given by the provincial bureau in 2011.
Li Weiyong, a deputy manager of Xiaoling cement, is arguing the ministry should have granted the company a hearing before making its decision, which would have a heavy financial toll.
The ministry is arguing that under the Administrative Reconsideration Law it was not required to give the company a hearing before making its decision.
In court, two representatives of the ministry said the Heilongjiang provincial bureau’s approval in 2011 was based on factual errors.
The court did not set a date for its verdict.
