A local court in east China's Zhejiang province Monday ordered 7.5 million yuan (US904,000) in compensation for 47 fish and mussel breeders who suffered from water pollution for years.

The Intermediate People's Court of Jiaxing ruled against 20-plus enterprises, including those involved in silk printing and dyeing, whose waste water failed to meet discharge standards and heavily polluted the water space where breeders cultivated fish and mussels.

The dispute began in the early 1990s when breeders in Zhejiang lodged complaints against enterprises in Jiangsu Province, east China, who they claimed were polluting their shared water.

At the mediation of the country's top environmental protection agency, the polluting enterprises agreed in 1996 to pay 2 million yuan (US$241,000) to the breeders for damages.

But the polluting enterprises did not stop their illegal waste discharges, which since last February have caused even worse pollution, killing large quantities of fish and mussels worth a combined value of 7.9 million yuan (US$952,000), accordingto the breeders' statistics from Oct. 31, 2001.

The Zhejiang court opened its hearing in mid-September this year.

(Xinhua News Agency December 21, 2002)