Environment agency uses drones to snoop on unsuspecting polluters
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 11 March, 2014, 4:43pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 11 March, 2014, 5:10pm
Li Jing [email protected]
Children walk back home after school on a severely polluted day in Shijiazhuang, in northern China's Hebei province. Photo: AP
The mainland’s environmental watchdogs have long been criticised for their allegedly lax supervision of industrial polluters, with attempted crackdowns facing opposition from obstructive local officials.
Now the Ministry of Environmental Protection is mobilising a fleet of drones – which can go virtually unnoticed – to record images of factories discharging untreated pollutants into the atmosphere.
Three recent videos shot over Tangshan, Xingtai and Handan in Hebei – three of China’s most polluted cities known for their steel mills, cement factories and coal-fired power stations – last month have helped to explain why smog has been so persistent over the region.
“You can easily tell from the colour of the smoke – black, purple, brown – that the pollution is over the limit, because if pollutant scrubbers are properly operated, only white steam comes out,” the ministry’s Yang Yipeng told the South China Morning Post, looking at pictures from the flight over Tangshan, where steel mills were even operating during the Lunar New Year festival.
A pedestrian wearing a mask waits for passing a road crossing in Shijiazhuang. Photo: Xinhua
“There were too many chimneys, and the drones also captured pictures of flames in the open air. It is still only the tip of the iceberg.”
Hebei, the country’s largest steel-producing region, is planning to phase out 60 million tonnes of production capacity, according to a provincial government announcement.
According to Yang, the ministry’s four drones, introduced in 2012 at a cost of around 8 million yuan (HK$10.1 million), are used primarily to gather evidence of environmental breaches, monitor pollution following accidents and evaluate the environmental performance of local governments.
The high-resolution images can provide accurate evidence against polluters who breach emission limits, he said.
“It was difficult for central law enforcers to collect violation evidence on their inspection trips outside Beijing, as they were easily recognised by locals and polluting factories would swiftly suspend production, leaving few traces,” said Yang.
The environmental ministry recently sent 12 inspection teams to Hebei. A recent report by Southern Weekly said the central inspectors were often intercepted by local officials, so that they could be guided throughout the trip, away from some of the biggest pollution hotspots.
“The drones, on the contrary, can catch them off-guard as few people would notice their existence,” Yang added.
In the fleet’s more than 30 flights, numerous violations have been found: an oil refinery in Guangxi had illegally been expanded, forests in Hainan were felled for a mining project, and contractors building the high-speed rail link between Wuhan and Guangzhou failed to clean up construction waste along the route.
Despite the drones’ advantages, Yang said there was no plan to expand the fleet, due to limited funding and shortage of flight controllers, who need at least five years’ training. The slow progress in opening up the airspace under 1,000 metres is also obstructing large-scale application of the drones, he added.
