Tongshan district officials run empty rural sewage plants to fake quotas while billing flooded residents
- Tongshan District constructed rural sewage treatment facilities that remained completely unpowered and disconnected from pipes for three years while claiming municipal ecological subsidies.
- Village water utility bills included mandatory monthly wastewater treatment surcharges despite raw effluent overflowing into agricultural fields.
- Illustrates performance falsification where cadres build non-functional infrastructure to hit green development KPIs.
Cadres in Jiangsu built fake sewage plants, ran water trucks to stage inspections, and billed the flooded villagers. In Tongshan District, local officials constructed multi-million-yuan wastewater treatment stations that were never hooked up to village pipes, Phoenix News reported. Officials ran empty pumps on closed water loops to fake operations for visiting environmental inspectors while raw sewage flooded peasant courtyards and spilled into the Grand Canal. To add insult to injury, the district charged villagers mandatory monthly sewage fees for the dry plant.
The scheme is a classic display of Potemkin environmental governance based on fabricating performance targets. It revives the old Maoist habit of exaggerating agricultural output (fang weixing), now updated for ecological campaigns. Grassroots cadres facing rigid numerical quotas from Beijing erect non-functional showcase hardware to win promotions, turning green governance into a theatrical performance.
The scandal reveals the ongoing reality of rural extortion. Disenfranchised villagers had no right to vote out their leaders, no ombudsman to petition, and no legal standing to halt sewage charges on non-working facilities. When local cadres fabricate green targets, rural families pay the bill and live with the filth.
Netizens compared the fake treatment plant to 'Potemkin villages': 'The pumps have never run, raw sewage floods the villagers' cabbage patches, but the sewage fee on water bills is never missed.'
Village chat groups were warned by Party secretaries that discussing the Phoenix News report with outside investigators would be treated as 'disturbing public order'.
Rural environmental subsidy funds are routinely diverted by township governments to cover payroll deficits, while automated sensor readings are spoofed to satisfy Ministry of Ecology inspections.