VietNamNet Bridge – HCM City will classify areas for wastewater discharge at 97 rivers, streams and waterways in an effort to prevent further pollution of the city’s clean water supply, heard a seminar held by the Department of Natural Resources and Environment last week.

At the seminar, Nguyen Van Phuoc, deputy director of the natural resources department, said his agency will submit a draft zoning plan for wastewater discharge areas to the city’s government for approval next month.

Manufacturing companies must treat wastewater meeting standard A before discharging it into many heavily-polluted canals and several upper sections of the rivers of Saigon, Dong Nai, Nha Be and Soai Rap. Standard A is the strictest criterion for wastewater quality management in Vietnam at present.

For instance, to protect the Dong Nai River, the city will apply standard A to any wastewater source exceeding 5,000 cubic meters a day discharged into the river’s section from the Tac River to Mui Den Do area. The same criterion will also be applicable to a section of the Saigon River starting from Phu Long Bridge to Binh Phuoc Bridge.

As for ponds and lakes in the city, the draft also requires wastewater to be discharged into Ky Hoa and Dam Sen lakes, Hoang Van Thu Park’s lake and other freshwater ponds to meet the aforesaid standard A.

After the draft is approved, the city will publicize the wastewater discharge areas, Phuoc noted, and violations will result in heavy fines, he said.

Speaking with the Daily on Tuesday, Nguyen Manh Hung, director of the Department of Natural Resources Management of the HCMC Institute for Natural Resources and Environment, said that water sources in rivers and waterways citywide are all polluted and disqualified for clean water standards.

Industrial wastewater volume discharged into the basins of the Saigon and Dong Nai rivers amounts to over 180,000 cubic meters a day. Besides, a daily volume of some 1.2 million cubic meters of wastewater is discharged into the city’s clean canals by households.

The city’s clean water sources have been polluted by household and industrial wastewater, animal husbandry and seafood farming wastewater, and wastewater flown from other provinces.

Source: SGT