VietNamNet Bridge – Trillions of dong spent to clean Ba Bo canal, which runs through HCM City and Binh Duong province, have gone to waste, as the canal has become polluted again due to untreated waste water from nearby factories.

The HCM City and Binh Duong provincial authorities, in an effort to improve the living environment of their residents, spent over VND1 trillion to clean the canal.

However, local residents are now disappointed as the canal is getting polluted again. While the people in the canal’s lower course try to clean the canal, the factories in the industrial zones in the upper course continue discharging untreated waste water.

Ut, 49, a resident of Thu Duc district, who lives near the canal, said his family and other local residents have to live with a very strong smell all day and night.

Pointing to the black current and the white foam, Ut said the “canal has been poisoned”.

“It is more terrible when there is a strong wind,” he said. “Blocks of white foam are blown by the strong wind into the house. We feel as if we are seeing the snow.”

A neighbor of Ut said the canal is polluted again because the factories in the upper course continue discharging dirty water every day.

“The canal’s water got cleaner some months ago, and fish came back. However, the water is getting black again,” he said.

The man said that factories discharge waste water at midnight to escape the eyes of government agencies.

“They try to discharge waste when it rains, because they hope the waste water can be diluted by the rainwater,” he said.

However, the locals say they do not intend to leave the houses where their ancestors lived. And they continue to earn a living by fishing on the polluted canal.

At the end of the canal, when it connects the Nghia Binh River, some men can be seen trying to catch fish. They hope that fish still can live there, where the tide helps clean the water.

Meanwhile, the other sections of the canal can no longer be exploited for agricultural production. The industrial waste has seriously polluted the canal and damaged the rau muong (a kind of vegetable) fields near the two rivers.

The local households there have left the fields uncultivated because nothing can grow in such polluted water. Instead of growing vegetables, locals are now building houses for lease to earn a living.

Nong Nghiep