The Ministry of Ecology and Environment, the Supreme People's Procuratorate and the Ministry of Public Security have recently launched a joint probe into malpractices of two environmental testing companies, in Shanxi and Shaanxi provinces, which are suspected of providing false certification documents and forging environmental data.

The two companies have been found forging samples, tampering with the sampling time, fabricating experimental data, replacing analysis samples, etc, and issuing false monitoring reports to help polluting companies get through the environmental evaluation, according to a news release issued by the ministries. The ongoing joint investigation is expected to deter other environmental testing companies from following suit.

Such third-party watchdogs were initially introduced as a reform measure to reduce corruption of the government environmental protection departments. Previously the local governments were in charge of testing the samples of enterprises as well as giving a green light to the enterprises if the samples were found to meet the required standards. Now they are mainly responsible for inspecting the evaluation results provided by the environmental testing companies and making decisions accordingly.

It should be noted that were it not for the exposure of a media outlet based in Beijing, the Beijing News, the two cases would not have been noticed by the central authorities. That means local environmental protection departments all "failed" to spot the doctoring of the environmental data that has been found to have lasted for a long period of time.

The question is what if the polluting enterprises, environmental testing companies and local environmental protection departments come together to form an interest group. If the polluters find it is cheaper to bribe the latter two than to improve their technology to reduce pollution, they tend to regard the bribe they give them as a "pollution fee", and the latter two see it as a reliable source of income as local environmental protection departments can choose to ignore the people's complaints about pollution ensuring the "sustainability" of the profit model.

It is imperative that the central authorities open green channels for local residents to report pollution caused by the illegal discharge of industrial waste of enterprises and other entities. That can serve as effective deterrence to not only the polluters but also those living on their "tributes" as they know the pollution cannot be covered up anymore.