New construction or expansion of chemical facilities prohibited within 1km of China’s Yangtze river from March 2021

On 26th December, 2020, at the 24th Meeting of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress of China, the Yangtze Protection Law of the People's Republic of China was enacted, comprising provisions that were drafted to regulate chemical parks and chemical works.

The law clearly stipulates the prohibition of the construction or expansion of chemical parks or chemical works within 1 kilometer of the Yangtze and its branch streams, and requires provinces with centralized phosphorite and phosphate fertilizer productions along the Yangtze to formulate stricter regulations on the discharge of total phosphorus, to effectively control the chemical. The law also prohibits the transportation through water of highly toxic chemicals via the Yangtze river basin, as well as other hazardous chemicals prohibited for inland river transportation, and the presence of industries in the key Yangtze ecological area that will have serious impacts on the local ecosystem, along with any actions by manufacturers that will pollute the Yangtze both midstream and upstream.

Local governments at or above county level in the Yangtze River basin will research and assess key sources of groundwater pollution, such as riverside landfills, gasoline stations, mines, tailing ponds, hazardous waste disposal sites, chemical parks and chemical works along the river, as well as the potential risk to groundwater in surrounding area. Accordingly, preventive and correctional measures must be taken.