Intellasia News Services -- Toxic canal drainage still delayed after 6 years, say officials

Toxic canal drainage still delayed after 6 years, say officials
Source: 25-JUL-2008 Intellasia | Thanhniennews
Jul 25, 2008 - 7:00:00 AM
Disputes between city and province authorities have delayed the start of a six-year-old plan to drain a heavily polluted canal along the HCM City-Binh Duong Province border, said officials Tuesday.

HCM City officials voiced their concerns at a meeting held by the municipal People's Council's Board of Economy and Budget to hear ideas on what the Ba Bo Canal needed and why its drainage project had been delayed for so long.

With more than 305 billion dong (US$18.2 million) invested by both HCM City and Binh Duong Province authorities, the drainage project was first planned in 2002 but not approved until July 2007.

At that point, it had been slated to begin in August this year, but officials involved now say the project is nowhere near ready to commence.

Nguyen Minh Hoang, head of the board, said every step of preparation work was still in its preliminary stage.

"If the work goes on this way, the project won't even be launched by next year," Hoang said.

The Ba Bo drainage project's main contractor is the HCM City Centre for Anti-Flood Control.

The centre's director Nguyen Phuoc Thao said his group had only received the project from the Department of Transport last month.

Thao said the centre had just begun its plans and that there would be many difficulties ahead.

He said the drainage project had been delayed because it could not begin until Binh Duong factories stopped dumping their raw sewage into the canal.

Dao Anh Kiet, director of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment, said the department had asked the eponymous ministry to deal with the factories earlier this year but the government had yet to intervene.

Statistics from the department showed there were about 9,600 cubic metres of toxic industrial waste discharged into Ba Bo Canal every day, mostly from the over 100 factories in two of Binh Duong's large industrial parks, Song Than Number 1 and Number 2.

This meant that some 2,000 HCM City residents were subject to serious health risks, the department said.

Dang Van Khoa, a deputy from the city People's Council, said he was angry that HCM City residents had to bear the consequences of Binh Duong Province's problems.

Khoa said the province had promised to treat the waste problem many years ago but that until now it was still just a promise.

After the city People's Committee initiated a project to clean up the canal in 2002, HCM City and Binh Duong Province authorities spent years arguing over responsibility in the matter until the project was finally approved in July 2007.

But since then, the project implementation has been plagued by more delays.

At a HCM City People's Council session earlier this month, representatives expressed impatience and asked the Department of Natural Resources and Environment to announce an exact timeframe for the project.

But Kiet, the department head, could not say for sure when the project would start.