China ? In a rare public admission of failure, China’s Communist government fired the country’s environmental protection chief Friday, saying his agency underestimated the impact of a massive chemical spill and mishandled the response to a disaster that poisoned the water supply of millions of people.

The dismissal of Xie Zhenhua, director of the State Environmental Protection Administration, followed nearly three weeks of conflicting and often misleading government statements about a toxic spill that polluted the Songhua River in China’s northeast. The spill forced the shutdown of running water in Harbin, a city of 3.8 million, and continues to threaten residents downstream in neighboring Russia.

Journalists and Communist Party sources said the decision came after a prolonged internal debate among China’s top leaders over who should take the blame for the catastrophe, which was triggered by an explosion Nov. 13 at a state-owned petrochemical plant in Jilin province.

The sources said senior company and provincial officials who sought to hide the toxic spill from the public were also in danger of losing their jobs as the party struggles to repair the damage done to its reputation.