VietNamNet Bridge – Sand is always a part of the lunches and dinners of the local people in the titanium rich area. The rare underground water, called the “white gold” has been prioritized to clean ores. Meanwhile, the waste water from ore exploitation has made underground water dirty. A lot of deep holes have arisen. These are the things the people in coastal areas have got since the day the titanium exploitation began.

Central coastal areas turn topsy-turvy with mineral exploitation (part 1)

Living together with sand, dust and pollution

In Binh Dinh province, titanium has been exploited in an area of 300 hectares. Meanwhile, forests have been re-generated just on a half of the area after the exploitation as committed by investors. The remaining area, which was the mining sites, have not been restored. A lot of titanium ditches there have turned into the “death holes.”

An enterprise, An Truong An, left the mining site in My Thanh commune of Phu Cat district of Binh Dinh province after the titanium exploitation finished, “inheriting” the water holes with the depth of 3-7 meters. On the morning of January 16, four kids came to play on a “raft” self-modified by them. Since the raft got overthrown, one of the three kids drowned. Only at that time, An Truong An returned to level the holes and make compensation.

A report of the My Thanh commune’s police station showed that two other primary school students also died of drowning on the titanium holes. Meanwhile, Tran Dinh Thoi, Deputy Chair of the Phu My district said two titanium exploitation workers died of the electric shocks on the water holes.

According to Nguyen Thanh Son from the Vietnam Coal and Mineral Industries Group, the outstanding feature of the open cast mining is that it causes serious pollution, especially to the water and land environment.

The 50 kilometer-long coastline in Phu Cat and Phu My districts of Binh Dinh province was once full of the preventive forests developed by the local people over the last 20-30 years. The “lung” of the area has become devastated because of the titanium exploitation. The further the titanium mining projects go to, the more forests bend down.

The titanium plants have removed the sand surface with the eternally existing natural vegetation layer. The natural sand dunes cannot sleep any longer. They have woken up and sand has been scattering.

As a result, a long strip of land in the coastal areas has turned into sandy desert. A lot of artificial sand dunes, taking shape from the titanium exploitation, have arisen. Local residents now have to live in blowing dust and wind, even when they have meals or sleep.

The latest survey conducted by the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment showed that the dust concentration in the air in the localities is 4-6 times higher than the allowed level.

Living in thirst for underground water

In My Thanh commune alone, there are 10 titanium exploitation enterprises, accounting for 1/3 of the total number of licensed enterprises in Binh Dinh province.

Hundreds of pumping machines were seen working at the same time, trying to absorb water from underground sources to serve the ore sifting. As the salinity has been intruding the water sources, people now have no more fresh water for daily use.

The Binh Dinh provincial environment inspectors have found out that most of the mining enterprises have overused the underground water without the permission by the local authorities. Ban Mai Company, for example, was allowed to dig one water well, while it spontaneously used six wells during the exploitation.

Tien Phong