A community in the city of Liaoyang recently sued the local environment-protection watchdog for failing to take action against a restaurant that has been polluting the local air.

Almost 200 residents from a residential area in Liaoyang, a city 500 kilometers northeast of Beijing, have accused the Liaoyang environmental protection bureau of not doing its duty.

"It is their job to protect public health and the environment, but they do neither. We will never give up until this situation is resolved," said Liang Gefeng, a resident who helped organize the lawsuit.

Liang said a restaurant called Xinshengyuan had opened for business on the first floor of a residential building in the area about three years ago even though the property company that owns the building had promised that restaurants and KTV bars would not be permitted to rent space there because of the potential for noise and air pollution.

Liang also said the restaurant dumped garbage directly into the sewer without treating it, despite protests from local residents.

"We cannot open the windows in the summer because it is too smelly," said Liang.

Representatives of the restaurant declined to comment on the case when contacted by China Daily.

The environment-protection law obliges environment-protection bureaux to review and approve any project that could cause pollution in order to protect public health and the environment.

However, it took the bureau a year to confirm that the restaurant was the source of pollution and order its owners to do something about it.

The restaurant ignored the ruling and even started doing some renovations, which residents say created more pollution. Local residents said they had no choice but to seek help from the government.

Three months after the initial ruling, the bureau sent another copy of its decision to the restaurant and levied a fine of 30,000 yuan (about US$3,800).

"We do not want to go to court. But we have no choice because the bureau has not done anything," said Liang.

He told China Daily that the restaurant's owners offered to pay compensation, but he refused. "This is about our health. I don't want compensation, I want a good environment," said Liang.

Authorities at the Liaoyang Environmental Protection Bureau had a different take on the situation.

Yao Hongyu, head of the bureau's law section, said the bureau took immediate action to resolve the case.

"Since the restaurant took some steps to resolve the dispute last year, the residents' demand that we close the restaurant is unreasonable. We cannot take action against a lawful company," said Yao.

However, he also admitted that the restaurant might have affected local air quality.

The judge will rule on the case next month.

Last year, fish farmers from Wenzhou in Zhejiang Province successfully sued the State Environmental Protection Administration. The farmers suffered heavy economic losses after their fish farms were polluted in 2003 by untreated sewage from a nearby development zone.

(China Daily April 26, 2007)