The General Office of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment ("MEE") has recently issued the Measures for the Monitoring and Early Warning of Water Environmental Quality in the Yangtze River Basin (for Trial Implementation) (the "Measures"), immediately effective from the date of issuance.
The Measures provide that early warnings of the monitored water quality in the Yangtze River basin are classified into two levels, namely Level I and Level II, with the former as the top level. When a fracture surface triggering the criteria of issuing a Level I early warning and another fracture surface triggers the criteria of issuing a Level II early warning appear at the same time in a city at or above the prefecture level, an early warning at the top level shall be issued to this city at or above the prefecture level. Meanwhile, the Measures clearly state that, the assessment of the water environmental quality of a fracture surface shall be governed by the Measures for the Assessment of Environmental Quality of Surface Water (for Trial Implementation), and the assessment results shall clearly specify the condition of water environmental quality; if the water quality of the fracture surface fails to reach the standard, the assessment results shall make clear which indicators are beyond the standard and the excess multiple for each indicator. The annual goal regarding water quality of the fracture surface, and cities responsible for achieving this goal shall be determined based on the goals concerning the prevention and clean-up of water pollution, promised by each province (municipality directly under the Central Government). Moreover, the Measures clarify that if a city at or above the prefecture level where an early warning is issued has practically taken corrective actions and thus does not trigger the criteria of an early warning of Level I or Level II or the criteria of escalating an early warning, the issued early warning will be automatically lifted or the level of the issued early warning will be adjusted downward, in the notice of early warnings circulated for the next quarter.