What are the details of the sky high environmental public interest case?

What are the details of the "sky-high" environmental public interest case? In recent days, a sky-high environmental public interest litigation case occurred in the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court (the civil public interest litigation case of environmental pollution by Weijie Waste Comprehensive Treatment Plant in Huadu District, Guangzhou City, and Li, a solid waste polluting civil public interest lawsuit), which has attracted a lot of attention on the Internet. The details are as follows:

Mr. Li invested and operated a garbage disposal plant and was the person in charge of the garbage treatment plant. In 2007, the garbage treatment plant operated by XX signed a land lease agreement with the Sanlian Lake Management Cooperative in Tanbu Town, Huadu District, Guangzhou City, renting their land to plant trees, and they rented about 400 acres of land for cooperative planting of trees. But during this time, the waste treatment plant will send some of the slightly processed garbage to the 400 acres of land for landfilling, which will then be used to plant trees on the land.

However, the garbage transported by Li Moumou was not processed, so he organized workers to landfill it. In addition, a lot of garbage was burned, and some of the slag produced after the garbage was burned was piled up on the land there. Over the years, this garbage treatment plant has piled up more than 400,000 cubic meters of untreated garbage, about 200,000 tons, which is very serious to the environment, and has caused serious damage to the ecological environment of that place and that land, and for more than 10 years, the ecological environment of that place has continued to be damaged, and it may be that even if the environmental restoration project is carried out in this place, the local ecological environment will not be restored to be as good as before.

Now the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court has made a judgment on this environmental civil public interest lawsuit, ordering the defendant's garbage treatment plant to pay a total of 100 million yuan, and the defendant Li Moumou will also publish a public apology on the TV station. In recent years, our country has paid more and more attention to the protection of the ecological environment, and now they are advocating: lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets.

The environment is the space we rely on for survival, in the context of such an era, to pollute the environment in such a bad way, will definitely be severely punished, and the protection of the environment is the obligation that every enterprise should consider and undertake to protect the environment.

On December 30, 2014, a high-profile case was rendered in the Jiangsu Provincial High People's Court. The Taizhou Environmental Protection Federation in Jiangsu Province sued six chemical companies for polluting the environment and demanded that the six companies pay 100 million yuan in compensation for environmental restoration. The final judgment ultimately upheld this claim.

This is the case with the highest amount of compensation in environmental public interest litigation in the country so far, and it is known as the "sky-high environmental public interest litigation case".

Changlong Chemical and other 6 enterprises gave the hazardous waste generated in the production process to Zhongjiang Company without qualifications at a low price, and secretly discharged the hazardous materials into the river, causing major environmental damage. The court awarded more than 100 million yuan in compensation for environmental restoration costs.

The beginning of the incident should start from 2012, according to the local residents of Taizhou City, Jiangsu Province, reported that the local 4 companies without hazardous waste treatment qualifications illegally put the by-product acid produced in the industrial production process, these 4 companies did not treat the factory waste, directly poured into the local river, the local river ecosystem and living environment has serious harm. After the matter was revealed, the relevant departments intervened in the investigation, and the suspect was arrested. After the trial by the local court, a total of 14 people were involved in the case, and the above people were sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment and fines for the crime of environmental pollution.

On August 3, 2014, the Taizhou Environmental Protection Federation filed an environmental public interest lawsuit with the Taizhou Intermediate People's Court, demanding compensation from the six companies that handed over the waste from the plant to the sewage treatment plant for environmental remediation costs.

On September 10, 2014, the Taizhou Intermediate People's Court officially heard the public interest environmental protection lawsuit.

According to the investigation of the relevant departments, the six companies involved in the case have handed over a total of tons of factory waste to four companies without hazardous waste treatment qualifications since 2012, and these waste materials have been dumped into local rivers by the four companies within one year, causing pollution of local rivers and affecting ecological health.

The Taizhou Municipal People's General Court found that the six chemical companies involved in the case subjectively had the awareness of illegally disposing of factory waste, and actually caused serious environmental pollution. Due to the particularity of this case, the local court introduced the concept of "virtual cost of pollution remediation", and calculated the total cost of remediation from the analysis of the surface water of the river based on the experts' analysis of the local environmental pollution caused by the illegal dumping of hazardous chemical waste, and the six chemical companies also need to pay additional assessment fees from relevant appraisers.

After the judgment of the Taizhou Intermediate People's Court, the six chemical companies involved in the case jointly appealed to the Jiangsu Provincial High People's Court.

The senior people of Jiangsu Province immediately examined the case and found that the appellant and the defendant in the original trial still allowed their attitude towards the illegal release of polluting substances even though they knew that the by-product acid might be illegally dumped, and regarded this act as permissive pollution.

The court ruled that the Weijie garbage dump lawsuit should compensate for the cost of ecological environment restoration, loss of service function, appraisal fee and other reasonable expenses.

First of all, we need to understand the ins and outs of this sky-high environmental public interest lawsuit. From 1 January 2007, Li served as the de facto investor and operator of the Weijie garbage dumpsite, and in May of the same year, he signed a land lease agreement with Sanlian Zhuhu Economic Cooperative in Tanbu Town, Huadu District, Guangzhou. Weijie garbage dump rents 400 acres of land north of Zhuhu Daling to plant trees cooperatively.

In addition, the Weijie garbage dump can transport the garbage that has been screened up the mountain, open a pit and fill it to cover it and plant trees. However, after signing the contract, Li organized workers to pile up untreated garbage and slag produced after simple garbage disposal on the land, and this environmental pollution continued for more than a decade. After testing by the court department, the amount of garbage dumped in Weijie garbage dump is about cubic meters, and the mass is about 10,000 tons.

Based on the application of the public interest litigation plaintiff, the court made a civil ruling: freeze, seal, and seize the bank deposits, real estate, and cars in the name of the defendant Weijie garbage dump, including his spouse.

A defendant in the operation of ecology, protection and environmental management, Weijie garbage dump, was driven by interests to ignore the public and social interests, discarded the original garbage at will, as well as the garbage sieved and the slag after garbage treatment, causing damage to the ecological environment, resulting in continuous damage to the local ecological environment for nearly ten years, and the damaged ecological environment has been unable to be repaired in the short term.

Based on the above, the court made a judgment in accordance with the relevant laws and regulations: Weijie garbage dump shall pay the cost of ecological environment restoration, loss of service function, appraisal fee and other reasonable expenses of the site involved in the case.

In the end, the court ruled that the Weijie Garbage Plant paid more than 100 million yuan for the restoration of the ecological environment of the site involved in the case, as well as 17 million yuan for the loss of service functions, and 440,000 yuan for appraisal fees and other expenses.

As a result of the judgment, the garbage dump needs to pay 100 million yuan for environmental restoration, 17 million yuan for loss of service functions, and 440,000 yuan for appraisal fees and other expenses.

The final verdict was that 50 million yuan of bank deposits, real estate, automobiles, and other property in the defendant's name were frozen, sealed, and seized.

The verdict of the first instance was:

1. The defendant Weijie Garbage Plant paid RMB for the restoration of the ecological environment, the cost of loss of service functions of 17143500 RMB, appraisal fees and other reasonable expenses of the site involved in the case;

2. Defendant Li Yongqiang assumed the liability for supplementary repayment when the defendant Weijie Garbage Plant was insufficient to pay off the above-mentioned debts;

3. Defendants Weijie Garbage Factory and Li Yongqiang issued a statement on the A1 version of "Guangzhou**" or on a TV station at or above the provincial level in Guangdong Province, publicly apologizing.

Since January 11, 2007, Li Yongqiang has served as the actual investor and operator of Weijie Waste Plant. In May 2007, Li Yongqiang, on behalf of Weijie Garbage Plant, signed a land lease agreement with Sanlian Zhuhu Economic Cooperative in Tanbu Town, Huadu District, Guangzhou City, a contract for cooperative planting of trees and a supplementary agreement, renting 400 acres of land north of Zhuhu Daling to plant trees.

AfterLi Yongqiang organized workers to pile up untreated garbage and slag produced after garbage incineration in the back mountain。According to the administrative penalty decision made by the former Guangzhou Huadu District Environmental Protection Bureau on March 22, 2016, the Weijie garbage plant did not operate normally in the production process of air pollutant treatment facilities; During the on-site inspection on August 1, 2016, it was found that the Weijie waste plant was not maintaining the normal operation of the solid waste disposal facilities and was piling up garbage in the rear mountain.

Tested,The amount of garbage dumped by Weijie garbage plant is about 400,000 cubic meters, and the mass is nearly 10,000 tons。After appraisal and assessment, the cost of service function loss was more than 17.14 million yuan.

In September 2019, the people of Huadu District, Guangzhou City established a working group for the remediation of informal garbage dumps of Weijie Garbage Plant, implemented a series of pre-project remediation projects, and will complete all clean-up and remediation and acceptance work by December 20, 2020. The total cost of ecological environment restoration is more than 100 million yuan.

The verdict in the sky-high environmental public interest litigation case has been announced.

For secretly dumping nearly 10,000 tons of solid waste and causing environmental pollution, a comprehensive waste treatment plant in Guangzhou was ordered to pay more than 100 million yuan for ecological and environmental restoration. The environmental public interest litigation case filed by the Guangzhou Municipal People's Procuratorate was pronounced in the first instance at the Guangzhou Intermediate People's Court on the 11th, which previously aroused social concern and was called a "sky-high" environmental public interest litigation case.

The court ruled that the defendant Weijie Garbage Plant should pay a total of RMB 100 million for the restoration of the ecological environment, the cost of loss of service functions, the appraisal fee and other reasonable expenses of the site involved in the case; When the Weijie garbage plant was unable to pay off the above-mentioned debts, Li Yongqiang assumed the responsibility of supplementary repayment, and publicly issued a statement and apologized.