Experts have warned about the risk of an increased quantity of dirty waste water released into the environment due to the electricity price increase.

Le Quang Minh, Head of the Natural Resources Division under the Can Tho Natural Resources and the Environment, said that if they treat waste water with biological methods, enterprises will have to use big volumes of electricity to run the treatment systems.

“It is not costly to treat waste water with chemicals, but only chemical production companies can use these technologies. Meanwhile, most seacooking and foodstuff processing workshops in industrial zones in Can Tho are treating waste water with biological methods. On average, a treatment system with the capacity of 500 cu m per day consumes VND2mil a day in electricity running 24 hours,” said Minh.

Minh related that one enterprise in Tra Noc Industrial Zone pays VND10mil a month in electricity to run its water treatment system. However, local residents still complain about the pollution the enterprise releases into the environment during production. Now, as the electricity price has increased by 8.92%, the enterprise will have to spend nearly VND9mil a month more to run the treatment system.

“The higher expenses for electricity will prompt enterprises to throw out dirty and untreated water directly into the environment,” Minh said, adding that enterprises also have to pay salaries to staffs to run the systems and pay maintenance fees.

Pham Dinh Don, Head of the Environmental Protection Sub-department in the south-west region, complained that it has been always a difficult task to ask enterprises to run their water treatment systems regularly.

“A lot of enterprises still throw out dirty water into the environment on the sly. Some enterprises have spent several billions VND to install water treatment systems, but they only run the systems when…environmental inspectors come,” he added.

According to the sub-department, the Cuu Long river delta now inherits 47.2mil cu m of industrial waste water a year, not including solid waste and some other waste substances that need treatment.

It is always very difficult to persuade enterprises to use waste treatment systems in the context of economic difficulties, and it is even more difficult to persuade them to do this when electricity prices increase.

VietNamNet/TBKTSG