Jiangsu chemical industry renovation plan has been issued

The Plan proposes that all chemical production enterprises on both sides of the Yangtze River mainstream and tributary within 1 km and outside the chemical park will withdraw or relocate before the end of 2020 in principle. It is strictly forbidden to build or expand chemical industrial parks and chemical projects within 1 km of the main and tributaries of the Yangtze River. Enterprises located in the first-class protection area of Taihu Lake, along the two sides of Tongyu River Clear Water Channel along the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal (East Route of South-to-North Water Transfer) and in environmentally sensitive areas such as the Red Line of Ecological Protection, Nature Reserve and Drinking Water Source Protection Area will be closed or relocated by the end of 2020. In addition, the plan requires reducing the number of chemical production enterprises below the scale. For assessing safety and environmental risks, all enterprises that fail to meet the standards should be closed and withdrawn before the end of 2020, and enterprises that meet the standards should be encouraged to enter the chemical park for development. For enterprises whose safety and health protection distances do not meet the standards, such as safety and environmental hygiene, they should be closed and withdrawn by the end of 2020 according to law; enterprises that cannot be closed or relocated must relocate all the residents whose safety and health protection distances do not meet the standards by the end of 2020. On the other hand, the plan defines the requirements for the division of chemical industry parks and emphasizes the reduction of the number of chemical industry parks (concentration areas), without mentioning the "reduction of chemical industry parks to about 20" which appeared in the draft. There are 53 chemical industrial parks (chemical concentrated areas) in Jiangsu Province at present. In the list of top 30 chemical parks in China in 2018, seven of them in Jiangsu ranked first in the country, including 24 in southern Jiangsu, 12 in central Jiangsu and 17 in northern Jiangsu.

Proposed in the Plan that Jiangsu Province will comprehensively carry out the reappraisal of chemical industry parks (concentration areas), and determine chemical industry parks with large-scale production, complete industrial chain, complete infrastructure and high level of comprehensive management; and definite chemical industry parks with certain scale, forming a certain industrial agglomeration effect, higher industrial level, better management foundation but not clear industrial chain. The location of chemical industrial parks should be cancelled for small scale, low industrial correlation, imperfect infrastructure, prominent safety and environment problems and dense distribution of sensitive targets around them. The Park (centralized area) where chemical industry has been cancelled, new chemical projects are strictly prohibited, and the number of existing enterprises is greatly reduced.

At the same time, the Program encourages enterprises meeting safety and environmental protection standards to move into areas with strong environmental carrying capacity; for a small number of chemical enterprises with standardized management, advanced technology, high product quality, safety and environmental protection risk controllable, the municipal governments of each district shall be listed as key monitoring points of chemical industry.

On the basis of the draft, the plan proposes to strengthen the information-based supervision ability and safety awareness of enterprise personnel. By the end of 2019, chemical production enterprises should build an information management system that integrates monitoring information of major hazards, detection and alarm information of flammable toxic gases, zoning information of enterprise safety risks, on-the-job information of producers and management information of enterprise production process.

In addition, legal representatives of enterprises and the first major shareholders, technical directors, safety directors, environmental protection directors and special operators are required to participate in the training and assessment of the professional competence of emergency management departments, ecological environment departments and their authorized agencies, and to take up posts with certificates and receive technical retraining at least 16 school hours each year. The retraining time of other practitioners shall not be less than 20 school hours per year. When adjusting their posts within the enterprise or re-entering their posts after leaving their posts for more than one year, targeted safety training shall be conducted again.

Compared with the draft opinions, the program emphasizes the strict disposal and management of hazardous wastes, including the need for chemical enterprises to accurately and comprehensively evaluate the types, quantities, attributes and generation, storage, utilization or disposal of solid wastes in the EIA report. At the same time, in the safety assessment report, the safety evaluation of the storage, utilization and disposal of solid waste is carried out, and the storage and utilization are designed, constructed or rebuilt according to the standards and specifications.