The environmental watchdog has taken three cities, one county and one industrial zone off its blacklist after they passed environmental reassessment.

The State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) said in a notice yesterday that the five areas had met the "essential requirements" of environmental protection after "earnest overhaul".

Pan Yue, vice-minister of the SEPA, said the administration will "constantly conduct on-the-spot checks to see whether the companies have lived up to their word on environmental protection and to guard against a rebound".

Eight other places are still on SEPA's blacklist as they failed to meet the requirements for environmental protection.

The areas removed from the list are Bayan Nur in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, Zhoukou in Henan Province, Weinan in Shaanxi Province, Xiangfen County in Shanxi Province, and the industrial zone in Wuhu of Anhui Province.

The places still on the list are Bengbu, Chaohu, Baiyin and Hejin cities, Lanzhou High- and New-Tech Zone in Gansu Province, Puyang Economic Development Zone in Henan Province, Shenxian Industrial Zone in Shandong Province and Handan Economic Development Zone in Hebei Province.

A recent spate of water pollution cases has prompted the SEPA to launch its latest campaign to try and persuade local authorities in areas along the country's four major rivers to put environmental protection ahead of economic gain.

The local authorities in six cities, two counties and five industrial zones - all in the vicinity of the Yellow, Yangtze, Huaihe and Haihe rivers - were blacklisted by the SEPA in early July.

Nationwide monitoring results showed that water running through these cities and counties was "heavily polluted" during the first four months of this year.

They were told to immediately suspend construction projects that have not gone through environmental assessments and were given three months to fix their "environmental problems".

A total of 1,162 companies and projects have been dealt with since the launch of the national campaign in July. Of them, 400 have been closed down, 249 told to suspend production and 102 ordered to take remedial measures.

(China Daily / Xinhua News Agency September 24, 2007)