VietNamNet Bridge - The right to live in a healthy environment with no radioactive waste must be a top priority and considered even more seriously than economic benefits.

The Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment (MONRE) Office has released the Document No 3218, communicating the Minister Tran Hong Ha’s instruction on checking information about the Dinh Vu DAP Plant.

Previously, the minister received complaints from locals that the fertilizer plant discharges solid waste containing gypsum containing toxic phosphorus in large volumes. The waste causes serious pollution and harms locals’ health.

The plant was developed by DAP JSC, a subsidiary of Vinachem in Dinh Vu Economic Zone in Hai Phong City.

Ha has assigned the General Directorate of Enviornment to check the information and report to him before August 12.

Nguyen Thanh Son, former director of the Board of Management for Coal Projects in the Red River Delta, in his article on Dat Viet, commented that it was unreasonable to set up a DAP plant in Hai Phong City.

In principle, investors need to consider two things before making decisions related to the building of Diammonium phosphate (DAP) plant.

In principle, investors need to consider two things before making decisions related to the building of Diammonium phosphate (DAP) plant. 

First, they need to determine how high the capacity of the plant should be based on market demand and the apatite exploitation/processing output.

Second, they need to find the place for the plant which would minimize environmental impact and facilitate transportation.

“It was a blunder to choose Hai Phong City for DAP plant,” he commented.

It is unreasonable that DAP plant, a chemical manufacturing project which discharges toxic waste in big volumes, is built in urban areas and in a delta with high population density.

The plant is located next to some logistics service projects, which are considered ‘relatively clean’, in the same Dinh Vu Industrial Zone.

Setting up a DAP plant in Hai Phong City was a bad course of action because the investors have to carry big volumes of dirty apatite ore from Lao Cai province to Hai Phong City by railway. 

If the DAP plant was built in Lao Cai province, the investors would only have to carry DAP products, clean and in small quantities, from Lao Cai to the lowland.

Vinachem, in order to correct the fault, has decided to build another DAP plant in Lao Cai province.

However, Son said that Vinachem tries to correct one fault by creating another, bigger, fault. The dumping of tens of millions of tons of toxic PG on the upper course of the Red River in Lao Cai province will bring much more serious threats.

Dat Viet