Emissions of a key air pollutant fell slightly in China in the first half of the year but water quality worsened, the country's environmental watchdog said Tuesday, urging tougher measures to deal with a grim pollution situation.

The State Environmental Protection Agency said that brisk economic growth and inadequate enforcement of environmental regulations were to blame for the "many outstanding challenges" hampering efforts to cut the country's air and water pollution.
In the first half of this year, the total national emissions of sulfur dioxide totaled 12.634 million tons, a decline of 0.88 percent compared with the same period last year, the agency said in a statement on its Web site.
Chemical oxygen demand, a water pollution index, rose by 0.24 percent over the same period in 2006, the agency said.

China has some of the most polluted cities in the world after two decades of breakneck economic growth, and the government has been losing ground in recent years in trying to balance environmental concerns with economic growth.
The agency blamed some local government officials for failing to grasp the need for sustainable development, but did not single out any regions or individuals.

Source: Associated Press (http://www.ap.org/)