The Saigon River has become more and more seriously
polluted due to the increasingly high volume of untreated water discharged to
the river every day. Meanwhile, both competent agencies and scientists are still
fumbling for an effective solution to control the polluted river.

Pollution increases rapidly, solutions come late

HCM City every day discharges more than one million cubic meters of domestic
waste water to Saigon River, while Binh Duong province discharges 41,500 cubic
meters of urban waste water and nearly 40,000 cubic meters of industrial waste
water.

Meanwhile, according to Le Viet Thang, MA, from the Water and Environment
Technology Institute, less than 20 percent of the waste water is treated before
flowing to the valleys of the Saigon River

Tran Van Quang, Deputy Head of the Binh Duong provincial Environment Protection
Sub-department, admitted that it is very difficult to control the waste water of
industrial workshops in the province, and that many enterprises keep discharging
untreated waste water to the environment.

“There are over 5000 industrial production enterprises, while only 20 percent of
waste water is treated in accordance with the required standards,” Quang said.

The Binh Duong provincial authorities have installed an automatic waste water
monitoring mechanism at six industrial zones in the province, which clearly
shows that treated waste water still cannot meet the required standards. Quang
said that the provincial authorities plan to install cameras as well to observe
the waste water discharge.

Phung Chi Sy, Deputy Head of the Institute for Tropical Technology and
Environmental Protection, has pointed out that no proper solution to ease the
Saigon River’s pollution has been found because of the unreasonable management
mechanism.

“We have too many projects and too many sub-committees, which has made it unable
to cooperate and connect the sub-committees,” Sy said.

He cited the story about Ba Bo canal as an example to show that it is very
difficult for local authorities to cooperate and join forces to settle problems.

Therefore, scientists have suggested that separated plans should be drawn up for
different localities, including HCM City, Binh Duong and Tay Ninh. The plans
should clearly stipulate which locality needs to do what things. After that, the
implementation of the plans will be put under the coordinating of a
sub-committee on protecting Saigon River.

Vietnam to learn US’ pollution management mechanism

According to Lam Minh Triet, experts have suggested to apply WPA (Watershed
Protection Approach) of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in managing
the pollution of Saigon River.

WPA is a model of managing river water which includes six steps: monitoring,
appraising, defining priority goals, developing management strategies, drawing
up management plan and implementing.

“This is for the first time we use the model. The model can be applied to other
river valleys in Vietnam,” Triet said.

“We have to do everything we can to save the Saigon River,” Triet said

Also according to Triet, there are 13 projects which experts say need to be
implemented right in the period of 2011-2015, with the total cost of 17 trillion
dong to help ease the pollution of the Saigon River.

Local authorities of the three provinces and cities on the valleys of Saigon
River will sit together to find a consensus about what to do to ease the
pollution. “It is very likely that a sub-committee of Saigon River Valley will
be established,” Triet said.

Source: TBKTSG