Hainan blamed for failure in supervising land reclamation

BEIJING, Jan. 16 (Xinhua) -- South China's Hainan Province was criticized Tuesday by an inspection team of the State Oceanic Administration (SOA) for its failure to supervise land reclamation and control water pollution.

Hainan's reclaimed land was mainly used for tourism and real estate, putting pressure on the marine environment, said the SOA team that carried out inspection from Aug. 22 to Sept. 21.

The inspection team said that in 2008, Hainan violated the regulations on sea area use by delegating approval power to coastal cities and counties. The misconduct was not corrected until 2015.

Hainan also failed to protect marine nature reserves at provincial level, which were poorly managed, the team said.

The province did not pay enough attention to nearshore waters with excessive discharge of waste water commonly found.

The SOA team said that the island has 543 waste water drains into the sea, but only 26 were monitored by the province's environmental authority.

Hainan was also told to submit a plan for rectification within 30 working days and a report on progress in six months. Enditem