VietNamNet Bridge – Dwellers in HCM City, who once took pride of the plentiful water resource, now feel worried about the rapid decreases of the natural resource.

Under the water resource management strategy of HCM City, by 2010, the city would improve the polluted surface water and set limitation on the exploitation output in order to preserve the underground water resources. However, it is now clear that the city has failed completely to fulfill the plan: the water resources are getting depleted, while the quality of the water is getting worse.

River water polluted, underground water exhausted

The Saigon and Dong Nai rivers, the main water supply sources for HCM City, are suffering high microbiological and organic pollution. Every day, the rivers receive more than 3 million cubic meters of domestic and industrial waste water, most of which remain untreated, and hundreds of tons of solid waste from the city and the upstream.

Scientists have warned that they can see many stretches of rivers becoming “dead rivers” because they cannot be capable more to deal with the pollution.

Meanwhile, the climate change with the sea water level rise has led to the deep and prolonged salinity intrusion to the river system. The same situation has been occurring with underground water: the pollution has been penetrating into different water layers, especially in industrial production areas and residential quarters.

The profuse water resources are considered one of the biggest advantages for development of the city. The annual rainfall is relatively high at 1935 mm, while the water reserves of the Dong Nai river system can provide 38.6 billion of cubic meters a year, and the sage underground water reserves for exploitation is 0.8 million of cubic meters per day.

However, it is the profuse water resources which have led to the overexploitation and overuse of water.

The problem is that though the annual rainfall is high, but rains only come within four months of the raining season, where rain water cannot be stored and causes floods. Meanwhile, the city seriously lack water in the dry season.

In clean water production, HCM City has seen a high proportion of lost water, at 34 percent on average, and sometimes 52 percent. Meanwhile, 20 percent of the dwellers of the city have to seek water themselves for use, especially big digging water wells and using the water from the wells directly, without any treatment.

According to the HCM City Department for Natural Resources and the Environment, there are about 200,000 wells created spontaneously by people and 1000 industrial wells which exploit 400,000 cubic meters of water per day. The massive exploitation of water has led to the increasing water pollution and the water decreases at underground water layers.

Infrastructure degrading

The HCM City authorities have been calling for investment in the infrastructure system to manage the water resources. The city’s water supply system was set up more than 100 years ago, while the Thu Duc water plant was built in 1963, which both have got too old.

Under the programming, the domestic waste water from residential quarters and urban areas would be collected in 9 areas, where there are 9 concentrated waste water treatment plants using modern technologies.

However, to date, only the Binh Hung-Binh Chanh waste water treatment plant has been put into operation. Meanwhile, a lot of problems have arisen during the operation of the plant.

This means that the city would need huge financial resources to build and develop water supply and treatment systems.

Under the overall program on supplying water to HCM City approved by the Prime Minister, the water needed for people’s daily life, services and industrial production is 1.7 million of cubic meter per day, not including the water for agricultural production.

The figure is expected to increase to 2.7 million cubic meters by 2015 and to 3.55 million by 2025.

Source: NLD