According to the WeChat official account of the "Ministry of Ecology and Environment", Huang Runqiu, the minister of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, investigated the air pollution prevention and control in Loudi and Yueyang, Hunan Province, from August 1 to 4, and found that some enterprises had violations such as abnormal operation of pollution control facilities, excessive emissions of pollutants, failure to implement emergency emission reduction measures for heavily polluted weather, and falsification of manual monitoring data.

Huang Runqiu and his delegation are conducting research on air pollution prevention and control in Loudi City.

This is the third time since the beginning of this year that Huang Runqiu has discovered this situation through a surprise inspection of enterprises, according to public reports.

The reporter found through investigation that in recent years, when Huang Runqiu went to local areas for inspection and secret visits, it was not an exception for companies to be found to have tampered with, forged data, and issued false reports and other illegal and irregular issues. Some local companies even exchanged information with each other and colluded to commit fraud.

In March 2021, Huang Runqiu conducted a surprise inspection of steel enterprises in Tangshan City, Hebei Province, and found that there was a widespread problem of production record falsification among the enterprises. Some even exchanged rumors and deleted production records to cope with the inspection. In the end, many people were sentenced for fraud, and some companies lost 1.4 billion yuan due to fraud.

In February of this year, Huang Runqiu went to Pingdingshan City and Xuchang City in Henan Province to conduct a surprise inspection on the implementation of the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Law on key industries such as coking, steel, and glass, as well as the implementation of emergency emission reduction measures for heavy pollution weather. It was found that many enterprises generally had abnormal operation of pollution control facilities, excessive emissions, failure to implement emergency emission reduction measures for heavy pollution weather, and falsification of production records Illegal and irregular issues such as online monitoring and manual monitoring of data falsification.

In June, Huang Runqiu conducted a surprise inspection on the pollution control situation of some enterprises in Yinchuan City, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, and found that some enterprises had illegal and irregular problems such as abnormal operation of pollution control facilities, excessive discharge of pollutants, falsification of automatic monitoring data, and false filling of production records.

According to data from the Hunan Provincial Department of Ecology and Environment, in the first half of this year, the proportion of days with good environmental air quality in Loudi City was 8.6 percentage points lower than the assessment target. The concentrations of PM2.5 and PM10 in the central urban area increased by 12.2% and 29.4% respectively compared to the same period last year. The number of days with severe or above pollution in the city was 2 days, and there are currently no remaining days.

In addition, from June to July 2023, during the inspection of Loudi City by the Fifth Ecological Environment Protection Inspection Group of Hunan Province, it was found that the city's construction site dust, slag transportation, and the prohibition of burning loose coal were not sufficiently rectified, becoming a "major problem" affecting environmental air quality. The environmental air quality of some counties and cities has long ranked lower in the province, and the regional environmental air quality situation is very severe.

On July 21st, the Department of Ecology and Environment of Hunan Province held a scheduling meeting on key issues in the "Guarding the Blue Sky" campaign for air pollution prevention and control, further transmitting pressure and driving the ecological environment system in the province to fight a turnaround in air pollution prevention and control with strong momentum and firm determination.

The meeting pointed out that air pollution prevention and control is a key battle in the battle against pollution in Hunan Province. At the meeting, the ecological and environmental bureaus of Hengyang City, Shaoyang City, Changde City, Zhangjiajie City, Chenzhou City, Huaihua City, and Loudi City made statements.

"Serious investigation and punishment, resolute crackdown, and never letting go of falsification of monitoring data"

Environmental monitoring data is the lifeline of environmental monitoring and the cornerstone of environmental management. In recent years, some companies have engaged in various behaviors of monitoring data fraud.

On July 27th, while attending the "authoritative department's opening remarks" series of themed press conferences, Huang Runqiu pointed out some cases of data fraud.

Some unplug or block the sampling probe, some use tap water or good water as the sampling water body, some modify instrument parameters or even built-in calculation formulas, some implant hacker programs, remotely manipulate monitoring data, and some fabricate false data ledgers.

"These fraudulent behaviors are often colluded and maliciously carried out by polluting enterprises and third-party service institutions. The methods of fraud can be described as diverse, and some are highly specialized, making it extremely difficult to investigate and punish." Huang Runqiu said, "These behaviors have a malicious nature, have extremely bad impact, break the bottom line, and violate criminal law. They must be seriously investigated and dealt with, resolutely cracked down, and never let go."

Coincidentally, according to the Ministry of Ecology and Environment, Changsha City, located in the Changsha Zhuzhou Xiangtan area, also experienced serious human disturbance behavior in June. In response to this, the Ministry of Ecology and Environment carried out maximum substitution treatment on the concentration of six pollutants for the month, which directly led to the bottom ranking of environmental air quality in Changsha.

In July of this year, Changsha City was once again pointed out by the first ecological environment protection inspection team of Hunan Province that some brick making enterprises were "indifferent, complacent, and perfunctory in the face of the current severe situation of air pollution prevention and control, even forging false production suspension records, evading supervision, and engaging in illegal and irregular production against the wind.".

Regarding the malicious illegal activities such as falsifying and tampering with monitoring data, and illegally discharging pollutants, Huang Runqiu stated that the ecological environment department must crack down severely and investigate them seriously, fully play a warning role, promote the continuous improvement of atmospheric quality, and continuously enhance the people's sense of blue sky gain.