VietNamNet Bridge – Duong Van Linh, Deputy Director of the Environmental Police Agency, said the entire basin of Dong Nai river system has to receive waste water discharged from over 4,500 sources, including factories, mining enterprises, craft villages, and residential areas.

"Terrible" is the word Colonel Linh used to describe the waste dumped into the Dong Nai River at the 9th session of the Committee for Environmental Protection of Dong Nai River Basin, held on November 6, with the participation of representatives of Ho Chi Minh City, Dong Nai, Binh Duong, Tay Ninh, Ba Ria - Vung Tau, Binh Phuoc, Lam Dong, Long An, Binh Thuan, and Ninh Thuan.

At the meeting, Dinh Quoc Thai, Chairman of Dong Nai People's Committee, was tasked to hold the rotating chairmanship of the Committee in the 3rd term (2015-2017).Thai said that Dong Nai will join other provinces to overcome the limitations of the environment in the Dong Nai River.

The Environmental Police Agency told the meeting that many businesses did not build waste treatment systems or did not operate the waste treatment systems and discharged untreated waste water into the river. Some enterprises built secret pipes to discharge untreated wastewater into canals and then to the river.

Worse, urban areas discharged over 990,000 m3 of waste water/day into the Dong Nai - Saigon river system, while almost all urban areas did not have wastewater treatment systems.

Since 2013, the environmental protection police bureaus in 11 provinces along the Dong Nai river system have discovered more than 2,100 violations and imposed fines worth more than VND100 billion (nearly $5 million) on violators. Of these, 15 cases were brought to court.

Photo: Sand mining on Dong Nai River pollutes the environment. 

The Environment Police Agency also reported that many district-level hospitals in the provinces along the river directly discharge waste water into the river basin.

The Committee has also issued a warning about the illegal encroachment and sand mining activities while the Environmental Police Department said that the Ministry of Transport granted license for dredging the river’s passages but some companies took advantage of this to mine sand.

An official from the Ministry of Transport explained that the Ministry assigned the Vietnam Maritime Administration to sign contracts on dredging rivers with investors. So far the Ministry has licenced 53 projects of this kind, including four in Dong Nai River.

The projects in Dong Nai River have a two-year duration but they were canceled after one year after encountering protest of local authorities.

The Ministry of Transport’s official said that dredging of canals and rivers is a must but this task will be researched carefully to avoid harm to the environment.

Chairman of Dong Nai Dinh Quoc Thai said that the local governments had to partly take responsibility for illegal sand mining, not only the Ministry of Transport.

Tran Van Nam, Chairman of Binh Duong Province, insisted that dredging in the Dong Nai River must be banned because it can change the flow.

The Committee for Environmental Protection of Dong Nai Basin said that the construction of new urban areas, economic zones and industrial parks along the Dong Nai River had also caused adverse impact on the river, including the encroachment on the river of a residential area project in Bien Hoa City, Dong Nai Province, and the filling of Binh An Lake and Ba Thang Canal in Di An Town, Binh Duong province.

The Committee also pointed out that in the process of developing projects, the local authorities had not fully assessed the impact on the environment. 

Minister of Natural Resources - Environment Nguyen Minh Quang noted that the Dong Nai river system is a significant source of water of 15 million people in the provinces along the river basin.

“This is the most dynamic economic development region today, but we do not trade the environment for investment attraction," Quang emphasized.

Minh Ha