On June 5th, 2016, the Ministry of Environmental Protection and the Anhui Provincial Environmental Protection Department conducted an on-site inspection in Ma’anshan City, Anhui Province, and found that Yujiang Machinery and Chemical Co., Ltd (hereinafter referred to as Yujiang Company) illegally discharged hazardous waste. After monitoring by Ma’anshan Environmental Protection Bureau, the indicators of the waste liquid seriously exceeded the standard, and it was highly volatile and corrosive. On June 6th, the Ministry of Environmental Protection informed Yujiang Company that it had built and put into use a production line of 2-Amino-4-acetamino anisole without the approval of environmental protection, and illegally discharged high-concentrated liquid waste in the production process. On June 7th, the Environmental Protection Bureau of Yuhua District of Ma’anshan City issued a Notice of Order to Stop Production to Yujiang Company according to the law.

For years, Yujiang Company had been illegally discharging high-concentrated acidic waste liquid to the abandoned well in the factory. Such illegal environmental pollution activities had been continuously implemented, and production had been started without authorization by evading supervision. A large amount of untreated waste liquid and waste gas had been smuggled out, which seriously threatened the ecological environment safety of the factory and surrounding areas, causing environmental pollution and damage to social and public interests. At the same time, its behavior had seriously damaged the ecological and environmental functions of the Yanghe River - Cihu River - Yangtze River ecological function zone, causing great damage to the local ecology.

On July 26th, 2017, the case filed by China Biodiversity Conservation and Green Development Foundation (CBCGDF) against Yujiang Machinery and Chemical Co., Ltd, an environmental public interest litigation case, was heard in Ma’anshan Intermediate People’s Court. During the trial, CBCGDF stated and proved the illegal conduct, damage consequences and causality of the defendant. The case was not decided in court.

On August 9th of the same year, CBCGDF received the civil judgement from the Intermediate People’s Court of Ma’anshan City, Anhui Province, which supported the litigation requests made by CBCGDF, including an apology, and decided that CBCGDF won the case.

Ma’anshan Intermediate People’s Court held that the lawsuit for apology filed by CBCGDF was in line with Article 18 of the Supreme Court’s judicial interpretation of environmental public interest litigation. The environmental pollution involved in the case affected the ecological and environmental interests of the public, and the defendant should apologize to the public.

For the situation that the environmental damage caused by pollution cannot be completely recovered through the restoration project, and the recovery cost is far greater than its income or there is no evaluation index for the recovery of ecological environmental damage, the virtual governance cost method can be used. According to the virtual governance cost method, the calculated value of the ecological environment damage caused by Yujiang Company is RMB 585,000, so it is determined that the defendant should bear the ecological environment restoration cost of the same amount.

In response to the lawsuit for damages filed by CBCGDF, Ma’anshan Intermediate People’s Court held that the direct loss caused by the defendant’s illegal discharge of pollutants was the emergency treatment expenses implemented after the incident in order to prevent the damage spread caused by environmental pollution, which was RMB 499,300, which should be borne by Yujiang Company. Another ecological environment damage of RMB 585,000 should be added as the loss. The total amount of RMB 1,084,300 shall be borne by the defendant. Yujiang Company refused to accept the judgment and filed an appeal.

On the morning of December 21st, 2017, the case was heard by Anhui Higher People’s Court. Yujiang Company requested to cancel the judgment of first instance on the grounds that the evaluation report made by Anhui Academy of Environmental Sciences cannot be used as the basis for the finalization of civil public interest litigation, and that CBCGDF, as a non-profit organization, cannot obtain compensation and the related expenses paid by a non-profit organization for litigation can only cover the transportation expenses for each round trip to 200 yuan.

During the trial, in view of the fact that students from the University of Science and Technology of China attended the trial, the agent of CBCGDF made efforts on the popularization of environmental public interest litigation, explaining the design concept, basic principles and litigation procedures of public interest litigation in China for college students, which generated outstanding social effect.

Translator: Victoria

Checked by Richard

Editor: Victoria

Contact: v10@cbcgdf.org; +8617319454776

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