VietNamNet Bridge - It’s still unclear where the waste sludge from the Binh Hung waste water treatment plant in Binh Chanh district of HCM City, the biggest one of this kind, would go to, though the plant has been operational for the last three years.

Four thousand tons of waste sludge has been created over the last three years, while 35 tons of sludge more are generated every day. Since the dumping ground for the sludge has not been found, the huge volume of sludge still has been existing and causing pollution to the nearby residential quarters.

Pham Dong Phuong, Chair of the Binh Hung commune people’s committee in Binh Chanh district, said thousands of the households living around the waste water treatment plant have been miserable with the situation. In late June, when the terrible smell from the plant turned unbearable, hundreds of people flocked to the plant, asking the leaders to fix the problems or stop operation immediately.

Binh Hung’s leaders promised to take necessary measures to ease the problems. However, they themselves would not be able to settle the problems to the every root. The problem is that the city’s authorities still have not found a ground for dumping the sludge.

Since the waste water volume for treatment of the city has been increasingly high, a lot of troubles have arisen, making it more difficult to operate the plant.

Since July 2011, three sewer systems, including Nguyen Bieu, Tran Binh Trong and Huynh Man Dat, have been pouring waste water to the plant’s waste water collection pipe. As such, the input waste water has increased by 85 percent in comparison with 2011, reaching 127,000 cubic meters per day; nearly equal to the plant’s designed capacity of 141,000 cubic meters per day.

At the Dong Dieu pumping station and the Binh Hung plant, the H2S concentration has increased by 2-4 times than that of 2011. Meanwhile, the input waste water has become more serious polluted with the heavy metal indexes all exceeding the allowed levels.

The volume of sludge generated by the waste water treatment has also increasing rapidly, now reaching 35 tons per day.

An executive of the plant said that with the treatment technology currently applied by the plant, the emission of odor proves to be unavoidable.

In principle, a waste water treatment plant must be at least 300-500 meters far from residential quarters. However, in fact, due to the limited land fund, the distance is just 100-150 meters.

No solution found

An official of the HCM City Department of Natural Resources and the Environment said that Vuon Lan ground now serves as the temporary dumping ground for sludge. However, it can only accept a small volume of sludge. Meanwhile, no official dumping ground has been found.

According to the HCM City Water Drainage Company, which is running the Binh Hung plant, Vuon Lan, which received the sludge from Binh Hung, has no more room for sludge.

The company has asked for the city authorities’ permission to carry sludge to Da Phuoc dumping ground. However, this proves to be an unfeasible solution for now, since the road to the dumping ground has not been built.

Meanwhile, it would be too costly to carry sludge to the Phuoc Hiep dumping ground in Cu Chi district, estimated at 940,000 dong per ton. The treatment of the 4000 tons of sludge at Binh Hung plant now would cost 4 billion dong.

Compiled by Thanh Mai