However, as Associate Professor Dr Bui Cach Tuyen, Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment admitted, not much has been done in this job in order to protect key rivers from pollution.
In 2009 and 2010, the General Department of Environment carried out surveys to find out the waste sources, current situations and the impacts on the environment in the valley of Cau, Nhue-Day and Dong Nai rivers. In the current conditions of the socio-economic development, big changes in waste sources can be seen regularly. Therefore, Tuyen said it is necessary to build up a database about waste sources which have been updated regularly. It is also necessary to make investments to build comprehensive environmental quality supervision systems which allow getting reliable figures to draw up reasonable management policies.
Tuyen has affirmed that these are the key tasks his ministry will instruct its officers to carry out in the time to come.
However, due to many reasons, including the lack of money and local workforce, the surveying and reckoning up of waste resources has not been carried out as regular task in order to meet the requirements of the management work.
Dr Nguyen Dinh Tuan, President of the HCM City Junior College for Natural Resources and the Environment, also said that Vietnam still cannot settle the environment pollution problem to the every root, while it only draws up plans to improve the situation. Sometimes, state agencies release figures about environment pollution and protection, but the figures are just estimates.
While waiting for state management agencies to make statistics and draw up measures, people still have to face high risks from the environment pollution. Some canals in Thu Duc in HCM City, for example, now have to receive the waste water both from the nearby residential quarters and from the industrial zones in Binh Duong province.
In 2010, the Committee for the Environment Protection of the Dong Nai river’s Valley, submitted the list of the industries which should not be existing on the area. The committee has proposed the government not to grant investment licenses to the projects in the fields of wheat flour processing, rubber latex, basic mechanicals production, dyeing, tanning and seafood processing.
The Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment (MNRE) has also instructed its department of environment to compile a government decree, stipulating the production fields which may cause pollution and need to be restricted or prohibited on the valleys of important rivers. In the immediate time, the restrictions and bans should be imposed on Cau, Nhue-Day and Dong Nai rivers.
However, Tuyen from MNRE admitted that it would be difficult to implement the task because this may not come in line with the current regulations stipulated in different laws, including the investment law, the enterprise law and the socio-economic development programs of the localities situated on rivers’ valley.
The HCM City authorities have released statistics about the waste sources to the Saigon River, which shows that 64 percent of industrial production establishments do not have water waste treatment systems.
After surveying and collecting information from 17 districts in HCM City, the city’s authorities have found that there are three main waste sources which directly affect the water environment of the Saigon River’s valley, including industrial, agricultural waste water and the waste from urban areas.
Of the three sources, the waste from urban areas is the biggest polluting source in both quantity (63 percent) and polluting substances. The organic substances and suspended solids in the domestic wastewater account for the large proportion in the total polluted volume of waste water BOD5: 88%, COD: 85%, SS: 91%.
Regarding the industrial waste water, the survey has found that 64 percent of industrial waste water still does not have waste water treatment systems.
269 enterprises have been found as to having no waste water treatment systems, accounting for 60 percent of surveyed enterprises. Waste water flow comes mostly from the districts of Thu Duc, Nha Be, Districts 9 and 12.
SG-TT
(MONRE)