Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Tran Hong Ha has requested Formosa Ha Tinh to build ponds for waste treatment in its site and only when fish in these ponds can live will the firm be allowed to discharge waste into the sea. 

 

Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Tran Hong Ha works with Formosa on environmental problems 

On September 8, Minister Ha and leaders of Ha Tinh Province checked Formosa’s environment facilities and worked with representatives from the company on the related issues.

At the meeting, Formosa said the firm has dealt with 37 environmental problems out of the total 58 detected by management agencies. The company will try to tackle all these problems by 2018. The minister in the meantime instructed the firm that from now until the year-end, Formosa had to deal with the most urgent environmental issues.

Ha urged Formosa to build two waste treatment ponds on its site to test whether its waste is safe or not before discharging it into the sea.

"The ponds are divided into two parts. After being treated in one part, the waste is discharged into the other part where fish are raised and only when fish can live there, will Formosa is permitted to resume the operation," Ha said at the meeting.

According to the minister, the recent mass fish deaths caused by Formosa's toxic waste discharge were a big lesson for environmental protection in economic development. Formosa has to try to regain Vietnamese people's trust.

Minister also mentioned the necessity of setting up an independent agency to operate Formosa's waste discharge as well as tackling with the firm's environmental issues.

Phan Lam Son, Deputy Director of Ha Tinh Province's Natural Resources and Environment Department, said that currently there are two supervision taskforce for Formosa's environmental problems, one from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and the other from Ha Tinh Province.

Son suggested merging these two taskforces into one for better consistency and they should be directly managed by Minister Tran Hong Ha. A clearer operation regulation is needed to be issued for the merged taskforce.

Dtinews