VietNamNet Bridge – Natural breakwaters and coastal preventive forests would lose, while radioactive pollution of the air and water would be serious, which would threaten people’s health. All these are the visible consequences in titanium exploitation areas.

Serious pollution

The coastline going through the Phu Cat and Phu My districts of Binh Dinh province has the length of 50 kilometers. Two years ago, there were thick and green casuarina forests spreading out along the coastline. However, there is no tree in the area, because the trees have been removed to give place to the titanium exploitation rigs, sky sand mounds and the holes in tens of meters in depth.

In My Thanh commune of Phu My district alone, one of the biggest titanium mining site in Binh Dinh province, there are some 10 mining enterprises, or 1/3 of the total licensed titanium miners in the whole province.

When reporters arrived in the commune in early January 2013, they could not see the beach in their thoughts, but only see the idle sand bank with very deep holes with titanium filtration rigs and tens of sewers discharging pitch-black water to the sea beneath. In residential quarters, orchards and vegetables gardens looked ragged.

The titanium slag processing factory of the Saigon – Quy Nhon Mineral JSC located there is believed to use modern mining technology. However, the terrible smell from the smoke pipe of the factory still made the visitors, including the reporters, feel dizzy.

“Every time when the factory discharges smoke, the whole area is sunk in the dust and smoke. We have been living in poor conditions. We have to close the doors and windows all the day, or we will not be able to have meals or breathe,” said Le Thi Pham in Hoa Hoi Nam hamlet.

There are less titanium exploitation enterprises in Phu My district, but the mining activities here are enough to make the environment seriously polluted.

“Previously, we could easily catch some fish everyday for our meals. Nowadays, we can only see dead snails,” said Le Minh Hoang in My Tho Commune.

Preventive forests disappear gradually

Three titanium mining projects are being carried out in Quang Ngai province, including one in Binh Chau commune, and the two others in Binh Thanh and Binh Chanh communes.

The land in the communes is getting fallow. There is no windbreak tree there any more, while farmed aquatic creatures at ponds die in masses.

According to Do Thanh Thao from the Binh Dinh provincial Science and Technology Department, the titanium exploitation activities have changed the terrain, created bumpy surface topography. The materials become more porous, while the dunes do not operate in accordance with the natural laws.

In order to avoid the protests from the people, in some localities, the mining activities have been carried out in another way. However, it is the new method which has led to the depletion of the underground water, salinization, and the spreading of radioactive material.

People live in the danger

A recent research work by Dr Vo Ngoc Anh has pointed out that the people loving in the titanium exploitation areas, the workers in mineral sifting workshops are prone to the higher contamination risk than in other areas.

After measuring the radioactivity in 1,000 places in the coastal titanium exploitation areas in the south of the central region, scientists found that the water from the mineral sifting process has been discharged directly to the sea, without going through any treatment process.

NLD