…[D]ecision by a Chinese court to accept a case in which a fish farmer has taken on two polluting steel companies and the local environmental authorities who allegedly allowed them to operate has become a watershed moment in the country’s environmental litigation.

The case will determine whether citizens can sue a government environmental authority for negligence or dereliction of duty that dates back to 2003…Currently, the country’s Administrative Procedure Law says plaintiffs who have been adversely affected by a government decision can bring the responsible authority to court within a five-year period after a decision is announced. And this has been a major stumbling block for farmers like Feng Jun and hundreds of other people living in China’s so-called cancer villages...

Feng, 50, has been fighting a nine-year legal battle against two steel companies — Langfang Shenhua Industry & Trading Co. Ltd. and Hebei Dachang Jinming Accurate Cold-rolling Steel Plate Co. Ltd. — that allegedly dumped thousands of tons of toxic waste into the Baoqiu River, which runs through his village of Xiadian in…Hebei province.

Feng’s…eldest daughter, then 16, was diagnosed with leukemia in 2006. The girl died a year later…his second daughter, then 12, was diagnosed with a less-malignant form of leukemia…Feng filed his first court case in 2008, demanding 1 million yuan ($145,000) in compensation…saying the girls fell ill because they drank polluted water. But…the…Court ruled against him that same year, saying he hadn’t provided sufficient evidence to establish such a link.