Promote the restoration of hundreds of millions of mu of polluted cultivated land by third-party treatment

"We must change the current single situation of government financial investment, and we must rely on social forces to introduce third-party governance and carry out comprehensive environmental services."-- Liu zhengjun

Environmental governance has become one of the hot topics of the two sessions this year. In the 2015 government work report, Premier Li Keqiang admitted that "environmental pollution is serious in some places" and "environmental pollution is a problem for people's livelihood and a pain for the people.

Liu Zhengjun, deputy to the National People's Congress, vice president of China Environmental Protection Association and chairman of Hunan Yongqing Environmental Protection Group (hereinafter referred to as Yongqing Group), believes that air and water pollution is visible to everyone and has attracted widespread attention. The government has also devoted great efforts to control it. However, soil pollution is relatively hidden, among which cultivated land pollution is more related to food security, and its treatment and restoration is imminent.

Cultivated land remediation projects account for only about 3% of the total number of soil remediation projects in the country

On March 7, Chen Jining, Minister of Environmental Protection, said frankly at a press conference: "Good soil quality is a very important guarantee for maintaining the safety of agricultural products and the health of the people." Speeding up soil pollution control and strengthening cultivated land protection are also the core themes of the CPPCC proposal handling consultation meeting.

Liu Xin, president of the Institute of Food and Health Engineering of Sun Yat-sen University, pointed out that providing high-quality and safe agricultural products should be guaranteed by excellent ecological environment, but now China's cultivated land polluted by heavy metals accounts for about 10% of the total cultivated land, and heavy metals in soil will enter the human food chain along with grain. Chen Zhangliang, vice chairman of the China Association for Science and Technology, said cancer is directly related to heavy metal pollution. Once the soil is polluted by heavy metals, it is very difficult to control it. The heavy metal pollution of soil has reached the time when action is necessary.

In April 2014, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Ministry of Land and Resources jointly released the first national survey report on soil pollution. The report showed that the pollution situation was very serious. Among the soils of different land use types in China, the over-standard rate of cultivated soil points was the highest, at 19.4%, and the environmental quality of cultivated soil was worrying. Among them, the inorganic pollutants are mainly cadmium, mercury, arsenic, copper, lead, chromium, zinc and nickel, and the organic pollutants are mainly HCH, DDT and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

In April 2014, China started comprehensive treatment of heavy metal polluted cultivated land, and carried out the first batch of pilot projects for the restoration of 1.7 million mu of heavy metal polluted cultivated land in Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan area of Hunan Province (Changsha, Zhuzhou and Xiangtan). According to the basic idea of "adjusting measures to local conditions, government guidance, farmers 'voluntary participation and no reduction in income" of the Ministry of Agriculture, Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan pilot projects divide the land into "standard production areas" with light pollution,"controlled production areas" with moderate pollution and "alternative planting areas" with serious pollution according to the degree of pollution.

Liu Zhengjun told China Economic Weekly that so far, this is the only large-scale cultivated land restoration pilot project in China. In addition, the cultivated land restoration pilot project in Shiping Township, Gulin County, Sichuan Province, the soil pollution control pilot project of sweet cherry base in Zongqu Village and Wanshan District of Tongren City, Guizhou Province have also included a total of 50,000 mu of cultivated land into the treatment plan.

"According to incomplete statistics, the number of cultivated land restoration projects completed through market behavior is only 7, plus national pilot projects, cultivated land restoration projects account for only about 3% of the total number of soil restoration projects in China." Liu Zhengjun pointed out that the number of cultivated land restoration projects is not only small, but also the average investment amount is the least, which is only 1/5 of the average investment amount of site restoration projects and 1/3 of the average investment amount of Kuangqu restoration projects. The funds mainly come from central financial subsidies. Obviously, in the face of China's current huge pollution of hundreds of millions of acres, cultivated land restoration is far from enough in terms of scale and investment.

On March 8, Vice Minister of Environmental Protection Li Ganjie said in response to questions from CPPCC members that since 2010, a total of 1.6 billion yuan of financial funds have been allocated for soil pollution control and restoration.

Greater difficulties may stem from weaknesses in the overall soil management system. Li Ganjie admitted that the basic situation of soil pollution in the whole country has not been found out yet. At present, the density of rough inspection completed is 8 kilometers per detection point, and the detailed inspection to be done in the next step is very necessary; laws and regulations, standards and systems need to be improved, weak technology needs innovation, and monitoring and supervision capacity needs to be improved.

Liu Zhengjun introduced that Hunan Changzhutan region has taken many measures to promote the restoration and treatment of polluted cultivated land, and has also achieved phased results. However, due to the fact that this work is still in its infancy, the level of restoration and treatment is not satisfactory, and there are four main problems: insufficient investigation area and accuracy, immature restoration and treatment technology, imperfect monitoring system and insufficient capital investment.

Third party treatment of environmental pollution is a better model with less investment and high efficiency

"What makes us most happy is that 'promoting third-party environmental pollution control' has been clearly included in this government work report." Liu Zhengjun said that from a practical point of view, the third-party governance model is a model with low investment and high efficiency. The Ministry of Environmental Protection, the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Land and Resources are vigorously promoting the third-party governance model with PPP ("government-led, enterprise participation, national and provincial subsidies") as the main form.

At this year's National People's Congress meeting, Liu Zhengjun came up with 10 proposals in one breath, the core of which is third-party governance. "I believe that Yongqing Group's experience in exploring third-party governance models over the years will provide useful reference for soil governance in China, especially for the restoration of contaminated cultivated land." Liu Zhengjun said.

Yongqing Group was founded in 1998 with total assets of more than 10 billion yuan. It is one of the few comprehensive environmental protection enterprises with complete industrial chain in China. The Group has 6 subsidiaries, among which Yongqing Environmental Protection Co., Ltd. is the only listed environmental protection enterprise in Hunan Province. In 2012, it was approved by the Ministry of Environmental Protection as the first contract environmental service pilot enterprise in China.

"It is difficult, costly and long to treat and repair polluted land. It faces many problems. The core problem is who is responsible, who pays and where the money comes from. Premier Li Keqiang's third-party service model can solve this problem better." Liu Zhengjun said.

In 2012, Yongqing Environmental Protection and Jiangxi Xinyu City explored contract environmental services for the first time in China. The government of Xinyu City purchased environmental services from Yongqing Environmental Protection to implement pollution control in a market-oriented manner.

Liu Zhengjun introduced,"After several years of efforts, Xinyu City comprehensive environmental management capacity has been significantly improved, environmental quality has been comprehensively improved, and at the same time, the rapid development of environmental service industry has been driven, with an average annual growth rate of more than 20%."

Zhubugang Old Industrial Zone in Yuetang District of Xiangtan City is a key area for heavy metal pollution control in China and Hunan Province. In October 2014, Yongqing Group and Yuetang District took the lead in launching PPP project for national soil heavy metal pollution control. Yuetang District Government and Yongqing Group signed a PPP cooperation agreement to jointly invest 100 million yuan to form a joint venture company as an investment and implementation platform for heavy metal pollution projects.

According to the cooperation agreement, Yongqing Group will make use of its own environmental treatment technology, engineering management, project operation and team advantages to propose scientific and systematic comprehensive treatment and ecological restoration schemes for the pollution control of the whole region, as well as fund calculation.

"In the future, the government should only be a good referee, do a good job in overall planning and performance evaluation, so as to improve the efficiency of project promotion and reduce governance costs." Liu Zhengjun introduced,"As a third party of environmental protection governance, the enterprise provides professional team and technical support, is responsible for the actual operation, and can only get returns from the benefits of governance effects." In this way, in order to survive and develop, enterprises must go all out to achieve governance standards."

Liu Zhengjun believes that due to its particularity, cultivated land restoration cannot be used for commercial land like industrial site restoration, thus quickly realizing cost recovery and profit. This also highlights the urgency of establishing a new financing model. It is necessary to change the current single situation mainly invested by government finance. It is necessary to rely on social forces, introduce third-party governance, carry out comprehensive environmental services, and break the decentralized operation mode with projects as units. A third party is introduced to carry out overall design, modular construction and integrated operation in a packaged manner. For environmental performance contract service projects, a fair and reasonable performance appraisal and evaluation mechanism shall be established, and the level of public financial payment shall be linked with governance performance.

"The area of polluted cultivated land is larger than that of industrial sites, and the impact scope is wider. It is urgent to speed up the restoration of polluted cultivated land. Accelerating the promotion of third-party governance is the only way." Liu Zhengjun said.