According to the Yunnan provincial disciplinary watchdog, three water pollution treatment projects in Qilu Lake, Tonghai county, were found to be not performing well. However, all of the 29 experts the county government had invited to assess these projects before they were accepted had given the projects a pass in April.

This incident has exposed the tip of an iceberg, raising the question of the role of experts in environmental impact assessments.

The provincial investigation shows that although all of these experts were well aware of the problems with the projects funded by the county government, none of them said no, as they had been paid well by the county authorities.

These experts along with many others have formed their own club, and to take part in environmental impact assessments has become a business to them. Only those always giving a green light to projects will stay, and those "bad apples" that honestly evaluate the environmental influences of the projects will be soon thrown out of the basket.

The problem is not restricted to the county in Yunnan. That's why the Ministry of Ecology and Environment stipulated that the irresponsible experts who do not fulfill their duties faithfully should be disqualified.

The ministry also encourages individual citizens and social organizations to report malpractices in environmental impact assessments, and the whistle-blowers will be awarded.

However, as the Yunnan case indicates, were it not for the provincial disciplinary watchdog's involvement, it could be difficult for the people to notice some projects' negative impacts on the environment if the problems are not clearly evident. But the harm that they do to the environment will be accumulating as time passes.

The country has made environmental protection an important development goal, and it is hard to imagine the environmental impact assessment experts have become the weakest part of the whole system.

It is time to plug the loophole of the appraisals of the environmental experts so their performance can be put under close scrutiny. And maleficent experts should be permanently disqualified from their posts to deter others.

The experts should be assessed before assessing environmental impacts.