The Measures are formulated.
Article 2 These Measures are applicable to the ecological flow supervision of small hydropower stations (with a single installed capacity of 50000 kW or less) within the administrative area of our city.
The ecological flow of small hydropower stations refers to the flow (water quantity, water level) and its process required to meet the ecological protection requirements of the downstream watercourse of the dam (sluice) of the small hydropower station and maintain the structure and function of the ecosystem.
Article 3 The ecological flow supervision of small hydropower stations shall be conducted in accordance with the principle of territorial responsibility, led by the water administrative departments of each district/county (autonomous county), Liangjiang New Area, Western Science City, Chongqing High-tech Zone, and Wansheng Economic Development Zone (hereinafter collectively referred to as the district/county), and the competent departments of ecological environment, development and reform, finance, economic information, and energy at the same level shall be responsible for relevant work in accordance with their respective responsibilities. The relevant departments of the municipal government shall, in accordance with their responsibilities, guide and urge the districts and counties to carry out ecological flow supervision work for small hydropower stations.
（1） Responsibilities of the water administrative department. The municipal water administrative department is responsible for guiding and urging the district and county water administrative departments to carry out daily supervision of the ecological flow of small hydropower stations; The district and county water administrative departments are responsible for carrying out daily supervision and management work, organizing supervision and inspection of the ecological flow discharged by small hydropower stations, and effectively strengthening the daily supervision of the ecological flow discharged by small hydropower stations.
（2） Responsibilities of the competent department of ecological environment. The municipal, district, and county ecological and environmental authorities strictly carry out environmental assessment and approval of construction projects and supervision and inspection of environmental protection facilities according to their authority, and regard the discharge of ecological flow from small hydropower stations as an important condition for project environmental assessment and approval and an important content of watershed water environmental protection supervision.
（3） Responsibilities of the development and reform competent department. The municipal development and reform department is responsible for establishing a feed-in electricity price mechanism for small hydropower stations that reflects the costs of ecological protection and restoration and governance, making better use of economic leverage, and promoting the restoration, governance, and protection of water ecology of small hydropower stations; The district and county development and reform departments shall cooperate in relevant work.
（4） Responsibilities of the competent financial department. The municipal and district/county financial authorities are responsible for implementing the ecological flow supervision work funds, supervision platform construction, and operation and maintenance funds at different levels.
（5） Responsibilities of the competent economic information department. The municipal level economic information department is responsible for guiding and urging the district/county economic information department to coordinate with the contract level water administrative department and the ecological environment department to supervise the listing of small hydropower stations with prominent ecological problems, strong social reactions, and inadequate rectification measures.
（6） Responsibilities of the competent energy department. The municipal and district/county energy authorities shall urge the owners of small hydropower stations to design, construct, and put into operation the ecological flow relief facilities and monitoring devices simultaneously with the main works according to their authority.
Article 4 The calculation of ecological flow of small hydropower stations should be based on technical specifications such as “Guidelines for Water Resources Demonstration of Hydraulic and Hydroelectric Construction Projects SL525″, “Technical Guidelines for Environmental Impact Assessment of Ecological Water Use, Low-temperature Water, and Fish Passing Facilities in Hydraulic and Hydroelectric Construction Projects (Trial)” (EIA Letter [2006] No. 4), “Code for Calculation of Water Demand for Ecological Environment of Rivers and Lakes SL/T712-2021″, “Code for Calculation of Ecological Flow of Hydropower Projects NB/T35091″, and so on, Take the river section at the water intake barrage (sluice) of the small hydropower station as the calculation control section to ensure that all affected river sections meet the requirements; If there are multiple water intake sources for the same small hydropower station, they should be calculated separately.
The ecological flow of small hydropower stations shall be implemented in accordance with the provisions of the comprehensive basin planning and planning environmental assessment, hydropower resource development planning and planning environmental assessment, project water intake permit, project environmental assessment, and other documents; If there are no provisions or inconsistent provisions in the above documents, the water administrative department with jurisdiction shall negotiate with the ecological environment department at the same level to determine. For small hydropower stations with comprehensive utilization functions or located in natural reserves, the ecological flow should be determined after organizing a thematic demonstration and soliciting opinions from relevant departments.
Article 5 When there are significant changes in the incoming water or significant changes in the downstream living, production, and ecological water demand caused by the construction or demolition of water conservancy and hydropower projects in the upstream of small hydropower stations, or the implementation of cross basin water transfer, the ecological flow should be timely adjusted and reasonably determined.
Article 6 The ecological flow relief facilities for small hydropower stations refer to engineering measures used to meet the specified ecological flow values, including multiple methods such as sluice limit, gate dam opening, dam crest grooving, buried pipelines, canal head opening, and ecological unit relief. The ecological flow monitoring device for small hydropower stations refers to a device used for real-time monitoring and monitoring of the ecological flow discharged by small hydropower stations, including video monitoring devices, flow monitoring facilities, and data transmission equipment. The ecological flow relief facilities and monitoring devices for small hydropower stations are environmental protection facilities for small hydropower projects, and must comply with relevant national regulations, specifications, and standards for design, construction, and operation management.
Article 7 For newly built, under construction, reconstructed or expanded small hydropower stations, their ecological flow relief facilities, monitoring devices, and other facilities and equipment should be designed, constructed, accepted, and put into operation simultaneously with the main project. The ecological discharge plan should include ecological discharge standards, discharge facilities, monitoring devices, and access to regulatory platforms.
Article 8 For small hydropower stations in operation whose ecological flow relief facilities and monitoring devices do not meet the requirements, the owner shall formulate an ecological flow relief plan based on the determined ecological flow and in combination with the actual situation of the project, and organize the implementation and acceptance. Only after passing the acceptance can they be put into operation. The construction and operation of relief facilities shall not adversely affect the main works. On the premise of ensuring safety, measures such as reforming the water diversion system or adding ecological units can be taken to ensure the stable and sufficient discharge of ecological flow from small hydropower stations.
Article 9 Small hydropower stations shall continuously and stably discharge ecological flow in full, ensure the normal operation of ecological flow monitoring devices, and truly, completely, and continuously monitor the ecological flow discharge of small hydropower stations. If the ecological flow relief facilities and monitoring devices are damaged for some reason, timely remedial measures should be taken to ensure that the ecological flow of the river reaches the standard and the monitoring data are reported normally.
Article 10 The ecological flow monitoring platform for small hydropower stations refers to a modern information integration application platform composed of multi-channel dynamic monitoring devices, multithreaded reception systems, and background small hydropower station management and early warning systems. Small hydropower stations should transmit monitoring data to the district/county supervision platform as required. For small hydropower stations that do not currently have communication network transmission conditions, they need to copy video monitoring (or screenshots) and flow monitoring data to the district/county supervision platform every month. The uploaded images and videos should include information such as the name of the power station, the determined ecological flow value, the real-time ecological flow discharge value, and the sampling time. The construction and operation of the monitoring platform shall be carried out in accordance with the Notice of the General Office of the Ministry of Water Resources on Printing and Distributing Technical Guidance Opinions on the Ecological Flow Monitoring Platform for Small Hydropower Stations (BSHH [2019] No. 1378).
Article 11 The owner of a small hydropower station is the main responsible person for the design, construction, operation, management, and maintenance of ecological flow relief facilities and monitoring devices. Main responsibilities include:
（1） Strengthen operation and maintenance. Develop a patrol system for the operation and management of ecological discharge, implement the operation and maintenance units and funds, and ensure the normal operation of discharge facilities and monitoring devices. Arrange special personnel to conduct regular patrol inspection and timely repair any faults and abnormalities found; If it cannot be repaired in a timely manner, temporary measures should be taken to ensure that the ecological flow is discharged as required, and a written report should be submitted to the district and county water administrative departments within 24 hours. Under special circumstances, an extension can be applied for, but the maximum extension time should not exceed 48 hours.
（2） Strengthen data management. Assign a dedicated person to manage the discharge flow data, images, and videos uploaded to the supervision platform to ensure that the uploaded data are authentic and truthfully reflect the instantaneous discharge flow of the small hydropower station. At the same time, it is necessary to regularly export and save the flow monitoring data. Encourage the green small hydropower demonstration power stations named by the Ministry of Water Resources to preserve ecological flow monitoring data within 5 years.
（3） Establish a scheduling mechanism. Incorporate ecological water scheduling into daily operation scheduling procedures, establish regular ecological scheduling mechanisms, and ensure ecological flow of rivers and lakes. When natural disasters, accidents, disasters, and other emergencies occur, they shall be uniformly scheduled according to the emergency plan formulated by the district and county governments.
（4） Develop a security plan. When the discharge of ecological flow is affected by engineering maintenance, natural disasters, special operating conditions of the power grid, etc., a work plan for ensuring ecological flow shall be formulated and submitted to the district/county water administrative department for written record before implementation.
（5） Actively accept supervision. Set up eye-catching billboards at the ecological flow discharge facilities of small hydropower stations, including the name of the small hydropower station, the type of discharge facilities, the determined ecological flow value, the supervision unit, and the supervision telephone number, to accept social supervision.
（6） Respond to social concerns. Rectify issues raised by regulatory authorities within a specified period of time, and respond to issues raised through social supervision and other channels.
Article 12 The district and county water administrative departments shall take the lead in on-site inspection and daily supervision of the operation of the discharge facilities and monitoring devices of small hydropower stations within their jurisdiction, as well as the implementation of the discharge ecological flow.
（1） Conduct daily supervision. Special inspections of ecological flow discharge shall be carried out through a combination of regular and irregular visits and open inspections. Mainly check whether there is any damage or blockage to the drainage facilities, and whether the ecological flow is fully discharged. If it is not possible to determine whether the ecological flow is leaking in full, a third-party institution with testing qualifications should be entrusted for on-site confirmation. Establish a problem rectification account for the problems found in the inspection, strengthen technical guidance, and ensure that the problems are rectified in place.
（2） Strengthen key supervision. Include small hydropower stations with sensitive protection objects downstream, long water reduction reaches between the power station dam and the power plant room, many problems found in previous supervision and inspection, and identified as ecological flow target river control sections in the key regulatory list, propose key regulatory requirements, regularly conduct online spot checks, and conduct at least one on-site inspection every dry season.
（3） Strengthen platform management. Assign special personnel to log in to the supervision platform to conduct spot checks on online monitoring and locally stored data, check whether historical videos can be played back normally, and form a work ledger for future reference after the spot checks.
（4） Strictly identify and verify. Preliminary determination is made on whether the small hydropower station meets the ecological flow discharge requirements through the discharge flow monitoring data, images, and videos uploaded or copied to the regulatory platform. If it is preliminarily determined that the ecological flow discharge requirements are not met, the district/county water administrative department shall organize relevant units to further verify.
Under any of the following circumstances, a small hydropower station can be recognized as meeting the ecological discharge requirements after being approved by the district/county water administrative department and reported to the municipal water administrative department for filing:
1. The upstream inflow of runoff type or daily regulation small hydropower station dam site is less than the determined ecological flow and has been discharged according to the upstream inflow;
2. It is necessary to stop discharging ecological flow due to the need for flood control and drought relief or for drinking water sources to take water;
3. Due to engineering restoration, construction, and other reasons, small hydropower stations are indeed unable to implement the relevant requirements for discharging ecological flow;
4. Due to force majeure, small hydropower stations cannot discharge ecological flow.
Article 13 For small hydropower stations that do not meet the ecological discharge requirements, the district/county water administrative department shall issue a rectification notice to urge the rectification to be in place; For small hydropower stations with prominent ecological problems, strong social reactions, and ineffective rectification measures, the district and county water administrative departments, in conjunction with the ecological environment and economic information departments, shall be listed for supervision and rectification within a time limit; Those who violate the law shall be punished according to law.
Article 14 The district and county water administrative departments shall establish a regulatory information disclosure mechanism to promptly disclose ecological flow monitoring information, advanced models, and violations, and encourage the public to monitor the ecological flow discharge of small hydropower stations.
Article 15 Any unit or individual has the right to report clues of ecological flow discharge issues to the district/county water administrative department or the ecological environment department; “If it is found that the relevant department fails to perform its duties according to law, it shall have the right to report to its superior organ or supervisory organ.”
Post time: Mar-29-2023
