Capital's Fangshan district authorities found derelict in duties

Inspectors with central environmental inspection have lashed out at local authorities in the capital's Fangshan district for illegally changing a hydrological monitoring station in a natural reserve into a hotel, saying they have been derelict in their duties.

The violation was unveiled when the inspectors visited the Juma River Aquatic Wildlife Reserve on Sept 12. They found that the station, which covers 0.53 hectares and went into operation in 2013, has become a hotel that openly solicits business, according to a media release from the Ministry of Ecology and Environment on Monday.

The Beijing Water Resources Authority approved the State-owned Beijing Jingyan Water Co to build the station in 2008. As the approval document shows, the station should be a building with a floor area of 2,814 square meters. When the company started to build the station in 2009, however, it expanded the building into one with a floor area of over 3,900 square meters without approval, the release said.

Moreover, also without any authorization, the company changed the station into a training center for its mother company, Beijing Water Investment Center, after the station went into operation in 2013 and then leased it to a private company, which transformed it into a hotel, in August 2019, it said.

It said only three underground rooms of the station have been used for hydrological monitoring after 2013. The three rooms only cover about 100 square meters, or 2.56 percent of the building's floor area.

The hotel is just on the shore of the Juma River and is only 4 kilometers away from a drinking water source. "It not only poses hazards to the safety of the ecosystem in the river and also may pollute the water source," it said, adding the case is "vile in nature".

It said the local water resources authority, which oversees the two State-owned companies, gardening and greening department and is in charge of overseeing the reserve, the government of Shidu township, where the hotel is located, and the local environmental protection apparatus have all been derelict in their duties.

The local water resources department has turned a deaf ear to the violations and failed to fulfill its responsibilities in overseeing the companies. Shidu government not only failed to stop the violation but provided the document needed for the hotel's operation, it said.