VietNamNet Bridge – A lot of big enterprises have been found discharging untreated waste water under handing the environment. People believe that there are many other factories which discharge sick water into the environment, but they are still “hiding their faces in the darkness”.

Several years ago, the information that Vedan Vietnam was found as polluting the Dong Nai River with its untreated waste water once caused the wave of indignation from the public.

However, Vedan Vietnam is clearly not the only enterprise which is polluting the environment. Several days ago, Sonadezi, an industrial zone development state owned enterprise established by the Dong Nai People’s Committee, which has got the title of Hero of Labor, two Labor Medals and the Chairwoman now being the Deputy of the National Assembly, was also found as discharging dirty water into the environment.

Thai Tuan Textile Company, which has been famous for its good business results and charity activities, has also been recently found as discharging toxin to the environment. The owner of Thai Tuan – Thai Tuan Chi – has claimed responsibility for the dirty waste discharging.

The environment inspectors in Tien Giang province have discovered that 12 out of the 14 inspected enterprises violated the regulations on environment protection. The enterprises discharged the waste water with the toxin concentrations higher than the allowed levels, discharged emission and dusts, and violated the regulations on creating reports on environment impacts.

The provincial department for environment and natural resources has decided to impose the fine of 47.2 million dong on seven enterprises, and has asked the provincial authorities to release the decision to impose the fines of 450 million dong on four others.

On August 21, Nguyen Van Loi, Deputy Chair of the Binh Phuoc province People’s Committee, released the decision to impose the fine of 225 million dong on Linh Huong private enterprise for its behavior of discharging dirty water which has the toxin concentrations higher by 10 times than the allowed level.

On August 22, Pham Duy Du, Director of the Gia Lai Department for Natural Resources and the Environment asked the local authorities to impose the fine of 137 million dong on K’bang mineral processing company, because the company did not follow the committed procedures on treating waste and discharged dirty water to the environment, which has polluted the Ba River which flows across Gia Lai and Phu Yen provinces.

Meanwhile, many other enterprises are also poisoning the environment, but they have not been discovered. Dan Viet has reported that in Binh Duong province, seven cows died drinking water from a canal. The local authorities then found out that it was because the water of the canal got dirty, because of the waste water from a nearby production workshop.

But what will come next after the violations were discovered? Will they have to pay fines and continue discharging dirty water to the environment? The question has been raised, because many violated enterprises were also found in the past, but the discoveries have not helped stop the violations. The enterprises

Big businesses usually talk about the so called “businessman culture”, “corporate culture” or “enterprises’ social responsibility”. Many of them are ready to spend billions of dong to act as the sponsors for cultural programs, beauty contests, but they do not want to spend money to treat the waste before discharging into the environment.

Vietnam has the environment protection law. It also has the agencies which are in charge of supervising the law implementation. But why has the environment still been destroyed?

People have urged relevant agencies to take inspection tours to more enterprises and factories to find out the violators. It would be really a costly work, but it would be better to spend money right now to stop the violations, than spending much more money in the future to deal with the consequences.

C. V