The Mekong Delta province of Ca Mau is developing a soil bank on 11 hectares in Cai Nuoc District to store soil and mud dredged from the rivers for ground leveling. This is the first soil bank in the Mekong Delta.

Ca Mau is developing a soil bank to store mud dredged from rivers and canals

According to the Government news website, local farmers usually dump dirt and mud from their shrimp ponds into rivers, and there is no place for the mud dredged from canals and rivers. Meanwhile, construction projects in the region are facing a shortage of materials for ground leveling.

Ca Mau currently has 290,000 hectares under seafood farming, mainly shrimp, so the volume of mud from shrimp ponds is quite large, causing environmental pollution and affecting the water flow, according to the provincial Department of Agriculture and Rural Development.

The province needs some 600,000 cubic meters of sand for urgent resettlement and coastal embankment construction projects. The coastal embankment from Song Doc Town in Tran Van Thoi District to Khanh Hoi Commune in U Minh District has yet to be built due to the lack of alternative materials for sand, resulting in a high risk of landslides in the area.

Sai Gon Giai Phong newspaper cited To Quoc Nam, deputy director of the Ca Mau Department of Agriculture and Rural Development, as saying that the province is developing the infrastructure for the soil bank project, which requires funding of nearly VND20 billion. Once complete, mud will be stored in the soil bank.

In addition, the province has been cooperating with institutes and universities to study and produce additives and mix them with the mud to make new materials to replace sand, Nam noted.

Some provincial officials and representatives of the World Bank had earlier visited the Netherlands to examine a similar model that has proven to be effective.

The Netherlands has assembled a team that travels around the country to dredge canals and rivers. The team brings the dirt and mud collected to the country’s soil bank, where it is categorized for organic fertilizer production or for ground leveling.

SGT