ALL Shanghai wastewater treatment plants are on a deadline to be upgraded.

Their improvement program to raise treatment standards for urban wastewater starts in September.

They are required to meet a top-level national emission standard after the city government was criticized for postponing upgrading from 2016 to 2020.

Separately, Shanghai Environmental Protection Bureau’s law enforcement team would be enlarged to ensure stricter enforcement against polluting enterprises and regulation violators, the bureau’s chief Zhang Quan said yesterday.

These measures are part of the bureau’s response to a report issued by the central government’s environment inspection team this month.

In the report, the inspection team pointed out problems in Shanghai’s efforts of building a better ecological environment, including the local government’s “leniency” toward environmental management.

“Renovation is easier to be carried out in suburban wastewater treatment plants, which handle 50,000 to 100,000 tons,” said Zhang. “But for those handling 2 million tons, it’s difficult.”

Zhang said all of the city’s 53 wastewater treatment plants would start upgrading their facilities in September to meet the national Level 1-A emission standard.

Currently, the lower Level 1-B and Level 2 standards are being applied.

Zhang said some renovations could be completed within this year, with the rest expected to do so by next year.

The inspection team’s report said Shanghai’s water environment management was inadequate — and 88 out of the 259 surface water sections under the city’s monitoring program failed to meet the Grade V national standard.

The authority was adjudged not to give adequate protection to drinking water sources and was behind schedule in increasing sludge treatment capacity.

Zhang said that with regard to water pollution, the polluting sources often involved illegal discharge from poultry farms, farmlands, as well as waste from residents in illegal constructions along rivers.

“The city’s campaign of demolishing illegal constructions has been helping a lot in improving the waterway environment,” said Zhang. “Sludge problems are the next to be resolved after water pollution.”

The inspection team’s report also said Shanghai water authority showed too much leniency to industrial polluters.