The police in the central province of Ha Tinh on August 2 decided to start criminal proceedings against violations of the regulations on hazardous waste management in Ky Anh town.

Ha Tinh police on August 2 decided to start criminal proceedings against violations of the regulations on hazardous waste management in Ky Anh town.

According to Colonel Tran Dinh Quang, Deputy Director of the provincial Police, Ky Anh Environment Company illegally an unlicensed contract on waste transportation and disposal by burying with Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Co. Ltd.

He stressed that Ky Anh Urban Environment Company has no function for treating industrial waste.

The treatment of hazardous sludge from Formosa Ha Tinh Company and the transportation of industrial waste by Ky Anh Urban Environment Company violates environmental laws, the officer noted.

In July 2016, Ha Tinh’s competent agencies found the environmental company illegally burying waste from Formosa Ha Tinh Company in Ky Trinh and Song Tri wards of Ky Anh town.

A special group, which was set up by Ha Tinh province on July 11 to inspect the incident, confirmed that Ky Anh Urban Environment Company buried a total of 390.72 tonnes of waste, with soil and rocks mixed, from the steel company, in the two wards.

Two days later, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MoNRE) teamed up with the province’s competent agencies to collect all the dumped waste, which was then kept at a treatment facility of the Ha Tinh Industrial Waste Processing Co. Ltd.

After analysing 38 samples of waste mud, 30 samples of soil, one well-water sample, and three spring water samples, the ministry has announced that the waste mud illegally dumped in Ky Anh town in the central province of Ha Tinh was a mixture of industrial and hazardous waste.

Test results show that some of the waste mud samples contained cyanide levels exceeding the permissible level of hazardous waste.

However, the surface and underground water along with soil at the dump sites and their surrounding areas have not been contaminated by the illegal waste, the ministry said.

It added that Formosa Ha Tinh company’s violations include not having measured and sorted the volume of toxic waste that must be registered and managed as pursuant to Clause 5 of Article 21 of the Government’s Decree 179/2013/ND-CP.

The firm also handed over hazardous waste to organisations and persons that had not been licensed to treat toxic waste over 5 tonnes, as stipulated in Point h of Clause 7 under Article 21 of the decree.

The MoNRE will fine Formosa Ha Tinh for those violations and request the company, which was also responsible for the mass fish deaths along the central coast earlier this year, to immediately settle the consequences of the illicit waste transfer.

Following the legal proceedings, Ha Tinh police will define the responsibility of organisations and individuals involved, and further investigate the incident.

VNA