Interim Provisions on the Management of Sewage Discharges

In order to implement the "Implementation Plan for Controlling Pollutant Discharge Permit System" (hereinafter referred to as "Implementation Plan") and speed up the implementation of the permit control system for pollutant discharges, the Ministry of Environmental Protection recently issued the Interim Provisions on the Permits for Sewage Discharge (hereinafter referred to as the " Regulations ").

The "Regulations" are the first normative documents for the management of the national sewage discharge permit. According to the "Law on Environmental Protection", "Water Pollution Prevention and Control Law", "Air Pollution Prevention and Control Law", "Administrative Permission Law" and other laws and the "Implementation Plan" Level unified discharge permit management of the relevant provisions, mainly used to guide the current around the sewage permits applications, such as the issuance of the emission permits is to achieve all the sources of fixed sources in 2020 an important support for the next country to develop a permit to discharge permits Lay the foundation.

"Regulations" clearly, MEP by industry to develop and publish a list of sewage permits classification management, step by step to promote the sewage permit management. MEP, according to the amount of pollutants produced, emissions and the degree of environmental damage in the classification of pollutant discharge permits management of different industries or different sectors of the same type of pollutant discharge permits the implementation of the licensing management. Efforts shall be made to simplify the management of emission permits for those pollutant discharge units that have a relatively small amount of pollutants and less emissions and a lower degree of environmental damage. The competent department of environmental protection at the county level shall be responsible for the implementation of the issuance of a permit for permit discharge under simplified management, and the remaining permit for discharge shall in principle be issued by the competent department of environmental protection at the prefecture (city) level.

The "Provisions" require that the sewage permit should contain the following permission items: the location and quantity of sewage outlets, the mode of discharge, the location of discharge, etc .; the type of pollutants discharged, the concentration of permitted discharges and the allowable discharges; and other permitted items stipulated by laws and regulations. Local people's government formulated environmental quality deadline for planning, heavy pollution weather response measures, the pollutant discharge units have special requirements, it should be set out in the sewage permit. The sewage discharge permit shall contain the following environmental management requirements: requirements for environmental protection measures such as operation and maintenance of pollution prevention and control facilities, and control of unorganized discharge; self-monitoring plan, accounting records and execution reports; information on self-monitoring and implementation of reports by sewage disposal units Open requirements; other matters stipulated by laws and regulations.

"Provisions" on the sewage permit application, issuance, management of specific procedures, application materials and deadlines have made detailed provisions. The Provisions stipulate that the existing pollutant discharge units shall, within the prescribed time limit, apply for the issuance of a pollutant discharge permit to the issuance authority that has the authority of examination and approval of the pollutant discharge permits. The pollutant discharge units of newly-built projects shall apply to receive the pollutants before they are put into production or use and the actual pollutant discharge takes place license. Ministry of Environmental Protection formulates the technical specifications for the application and issuance of sewage permits, and the pollutant discharge units submit application for emission permits in accordance with the application and issuance of technical specifications for sewage discharge permits, and declare the types and concentration of pollutants discharged. Sewage units shall bear legal responsibility for the authenticity, legality and completeness of the application materials.

The Regulation emphasizes that the competent department of environmental protection shall supervise and enforce the emission of pollutants by the pollutant discharge units according to the pollutant discharge permit. To report more complaints, there are serious violations of the record and so on sewage units to improve the sampling ratio. In the inspection found violations of sewage permits, credit information should be credited into the system. Encourage the public, the news media to supervise the sewage disposal units.

The Provisions stipulate that the application, acceptance, examination, issuance, alteration, renewal, cancellation, cancellation and loss re-issue of the sewage discharge permit shall be conducted on the national sewage discharge permit management information platform. The implementation of discharge permits, regulatory enforcement and social supervision and other information should be recorded in the national sewage permit management information platform. The Ministry of Environmental Protection is responsible for the construction, operation, maintenance and management of the national sewage permit management information platform. The existing information management platform for sewage disposal permits should gradually provide access to data.