THE GOVERNMENT OF KUNSHAN, an industrial city in East China's Jiangsu province, has ordered all of the 270 enterprises under its jurisdiction to suspend their operations from Dec 25 to Jan 10 as an inspection is carried out to ensure the quality of the local river water meets national standards. The government has said that the order to suspend production will be prolonged if the annual check finds the water quality fails to meet the required standards. Thepaper.cn commented on Wednesday:

According to the Kunshan environmental protection bureau, the water quality in at least three examination spots along rivers in the county fails to meet the national standards by a large margin.

Although the enterprises claim their waste water directly flows into local sewage treatment works as required, local residents told the media that not all companies follow the rules, as some are found stealthily discharging their waste water into nearby rivers.

Sadly, the Kunshan government, as the party ultimately responsible for dealing with environmental pollution, did not stop the polluters before such a sweeping approach was needed for its rivers to meet the central government's water standards, which means that all law-abiding enterprises are paying the bill for a few bad apples.

Or, as some local residents have suggested, the government has not fulfilled its environmental protection duty at all, because were it not for the authorities' acquiescence, the polluting enterprises would not have the audacity to discharge their waste into rivers directly.

Should this be the case, there is reason to believe there might have been some underhand dealings between the supervisory officials and the polluting enterprises.

The daily water quality monitoring data provided by the environmental watchdog indicates the government knew about the existence of pollution without taking any action to deal with the polluters.

Resorting to the extreme method of requiring all enterprises to stop production is the easiest way for it to pass the annual water quality check organized by the higher level departments. Which means all old tricks can be continued, if the town passes the check.