China News Service, Beijing, September 17 (Reporter Ruan Yulin) The Central Ecological Environmental Protection Supervision Team notified on the 17th that the Fifth Central Ecological Environmental Protection Supervisory Team inspected Sichuan and found that Meishan City violated the law around the Heilongtan Reservoir, a centralized drinking water source. The development of real estate projects squeezes the ecological space of Heilongtan Reservoir, severely damages the ecological environment of water sources, and threatens the safety of drinking water for the people.
The Heilongtan Reservoir covers an area of 23.6 square kilometers and has a total storage capacity of 360 million cubic meters. It is the source of drinking water for nearly 3 million people in Meishan City, Renshou County, and Jingyan County of Leshan City.
However, the inspector found that since April 2018, Meishan City and Renshou County have violated the regulations and developed real estate projects in the Heilongtan drinking water source quasi-protection zone. Among them, the two areas of Long Island Future City and Tianfu Eco-city have approved real estate projects. 20, 1097 buildings are planned to be constructed, with a total land area of about 3222 mu. Up to now, 322 buildings have been built and 775 buildings are under construction.
A large number of low-rise buildings are built adjacent to the water, seriously squeezing the ecological protection space of drinking water sources.
The Legislative Affairs Committee of the Standing Committee of the Meishan Municipal People’s Congress issued written explanations to the Management Committee of Heilongtan Scenic Area and the People’s Government of Renshou County in March 2018 and April 2020 without the right to interpret the law. The "green light" for real estate development in this area directly led to the illegal start of construction of 20 real estate projects in the Heilongtan Drinking Water Quasi-Protection Zone.
The inspector also discovered that since 2018, the Sichuan Forestry and Grassland Bureau has handled forest land use procedures for relevant real estate projects in violation of regulations, resulting in the occupation of 342.56 acres of forest land in the Heilongtan Drinking Water Quasi-Protection Area.
At the same time, due to inadequate supervision and management, 88 cases of forest destruction have occurred in the Heilongtan watershed since 2018, involving an area of 761.58 mu of forest land.
The inspector saw that a large amount of vegetation in the northern and northwestern regions of Heilongtan Reservoir had been destroyed. The original forest trees had been replaced by high-rise buildings and bungalows. The water conservation function was basically lost, which affected the authenticity and integrity of the Heilongtan Reservoir ecosystem. .
In addition, according to the "Overall Implementation Plan for the Pilot Program of Ecological Environmental Protection in Heilongtan, Sichuan Province", Meishan City should complete 53 ecological environmental protection projects by the end of 2017.
As of the time of this batch of inspectors, only 192 acres of the 4000 acres of ecological conservation forests that should be built have been completed, accounting for only 4.8%.
The inspector pointed out that Meishan City and Renshou County did not properly handle the relationship between development and protection, and the protection of drinking water sources was ineffective. The inspection team will further investigate and verify the situation. (over)