Beijing's illegal sewage producers will soon face harsher penalties as local legislature mulls stricter standards for water treatment in the capital.

      Lawmakers yesterday reviewed a draft regulation on water pollution control at the last legislative meeting of the Beijing municipal people's congress this year. Emitters, including hundreds of small-scale factories in Beijing, will pay a punitive fine of up to five times their annual sewage treatment fees if they fall short of environmental standards, according to the draft.

      The new draft also bans water treatment plants from dumping sewage mud, the remains of water pollutants which will further pollute the soil, and forbids farms that let out waste water without treatment. All recycled water used for civil purposes must also meet national standards, the draft says.

      The previous local legislation on water pollution control took effect seven years ago. Beijing needs stricter implementation rules in the national laws put into effect last year, legislators said.

      "We suggested the five-time punitive fine be written into the new regulation. This should significantly prevent hundreds of illegal emitters putting out pollutants," Zhao Yi, a senior legislative member with the municipal people's congress, told METRO on the sidelines of the meeting.

      He also said he personally supported "even harsher punishment" than the draft's suggestions.

      "We have pushed for studies on whether Beijing should follow the method applied in the Chongqing municipality. Their government fines illegal plants on a daily basis, but we charge them once a year," said Zhao.

      But environmental authorities said yesterday they will apply harsher punishments year by year, instead of changing everything overnight and dragging down the city's economic recovery.

      "The municipal government is keen on setting new bars on sewage emissions in separate moves," Shi Hanming, director of the Beijing municipal environment protection bureau, briefed the session yesterday. The government should divide the emission targets among district authorities and major industrial clusters and check their completion once a year, Shi suggested in a revision to the draft.

      District officials will be held responsible while industrial operators will be fined and barred from setting up new plants, the official said.

      Also at the meeting, Beijing High Court president Chi Qiang said local courts can set up special environmental tribunals following a sharp rise in pollution-related trials over recent years.