VietNamNet Bridge - Dankia-Suoi Vang Lake (Lake of Yellow Springs), a famous beautiful site in the tourism city of Da Lat, has been repeatedly compromised, causing big impact on the natural landscape and water supply for Da Lat City and Lac Duong district of Lam Dong province.

The visitors to the upstream area of Dan Kia Lake in Lac Duong Town can see some large vegetable and flower gardens which encroach on the lake. 

The prolonged serious drought, leading to the decline of the water level in Dan Kia Lake, has brought the golden opportunity to locals who have poured soil into the lake to make room for gardens.

When reporters came to the Dan Kia-Suoi Vang Water Supply Plant, they saw many excavators bulldozing land from the coffee hill to the edge of the lake. The land area is 2 meters higher than the water level, the outer edge of which is reinforced with large rocks.

Hoang Van Hanh, deputy head of the Lac Duong district’s Sub-department of Natural Resources and the Environment, confirmed that the people violated the laws when pouring soil into the Dan Kia Lake. However, it will still take time to take measurements to define the exact area.

Just some hundreds of meters away from the place, there is a new vegetable garden on the lake. The garden is relatively flat, about 2 meters above the water surface and surrounded with barbed wire.

“The local authorities discovered the illegal encroachment last September and asked the locals to stop doing this. The encroached area is about hundreds of square meters,” Hanh said.

Dankia-Suoi Vang Lake (Lake of Yellow Springs), a famous beautiful site in the tourism city of Da Lat, has been repeatedly compromised, causing big impact on the natural landscape and water supply for Da Lat City

Meanwhile, other gardens on Dan Kia Lake have been there for a long time. They are mostly located in the areas adjacent to the coffee growing hills alongside the Dan Kia residential quarter.

Chair of Lac Duong district Pham Trieu said that the places where people clear land for gardens are outside the Dan Kia Lake sphere and they have land-use right certificates.

However, when reporters showed the pictures taken on the site, Trieu admitted that he did not know about the place.

Dan Kia Lake has been threatened not only by locals’ encroachment, but also by the waste generated during agricultural production.

Director of the Lam Dong Water Supply and Drainage Company Vo Quang Tuan said the water capacity of Dan Kia Lake had declined by millions of cubic meters because of the land exploitation activities.

However, he said the biggest worry was from plant protection substances from the upstream vegetable and flower gardens.