Transparency requirement on soil pollution a big step forward

THE STATE COUNCIL, China's Cabinet, issued a regulation on preventing and cleaning up soil pollution on Tuesday, which not only sets clear standards, but also supports the public's right to know and supervise implementation efforts. Beijing News comments:

The new regulation mentions "transparency" 10 times. It requires local governments to routinely publish the soil conditions within their areas of administration, requests third-party institutions to publish their assessments of soil conditions and asks key industrial enterprises to make public the pollutants they produce.

For long, a lack of transparency has curbed efforts to fight soil pollution. For example, when lawyers applied for the national soil pollution data, they were told it is a "State secret"; and when environmental protection volunteers applied to provincial-level environmental protection departments for disclosure of the information, they met difficulties.