BEIJING, Sept. 5(Xinhuanet)-- China's State Environmental Protection Administration(SEPA), the country's environment watchdog, laid bare 14 waste water treatment plants for ill operation on Monday, saying that there are still more than a hundred of such plants being found in its recent inspection.

The inspection, launched in China's 27 provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities by SEPA this year, aimed to investigatein the operation of these places' 535 sewage treatment plants.

"The major problems of these plants are either sluggish or incapable operation after establishment, or with very low efficiency," said Lu Xinyuan, the director of environment supervision department with SEPA.

The government has earmarked huge to the establishment of these plants, for example, Lu said, 12 of the listed 14 plants has consumed 573 million yuan's(70.7 million US dollars) national debts for setting up, however, they failed to function as scheduled.

Lu said one of the factors for failures of these plants in operation is to local officials embezzlement of the special funds or lacking of enough attention from local leaders.

"We will put the 14 plants involving 10 provinces and seven drainage areas under supervision," Lu said, and warned that the SEPA will associate with concerned departments to conduct environmental assessments to the unqualified waste water treatmentplants and look into the departments and people accountable.

Plants in economically developed areas including Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin have better performances, but situations in other areas are serious, nearly one-fifth of the plants investigated have problems, Lu said. Enditem