LookAtVietnam – The management committee of the East-West Highway project in HCMC last Friday urged the contractors of the project to immediately unblock the sewers along the Tau Hu-Ben Nghe Canal to prevent severe flooding.

Long said that 60% of the sewer system along the canal was blocked for the construction of the highway, resulting in a much reduced drainage capacity in the city, especially in districts west of the city.

Due to the blocked sewers and slow road excavation of ongoing sanitation and environment projects, a downpour early last week flooded 58 sites on 56 streets and caused chaotic traffic.

Many contractors are using small pumps to take rainwater off the streets, hardly sufficient in heavy rain.

According to the center’s latest report, progress on the city’s many flood prevention and drainage upgrade projects has been slow.

One sanitation and environment project along Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe Canal has a total of 10 bidding packages to construct a drainage system. However, as of late 2008, one package was only 59% complete and the other nine were only 16-46% complete.

Another example is a project for water and environment improvement in the Ben Nghe-Tau Hu-Doi-Te Canal Basin. Two packages, a water pumping station and a wastewater treatment facility are 99% complete, but three remaining packages related to drainage construction are only 37% to 59% complete.

Nguyen Ngoc Cong, deputy director of the center, said there were 66 downpours causing heavy flooding in the city last rainy season. “I can predict that the flooding situation this year will be heavier than last year due to more changeable weather and more out of control road excavation,” Cong told the Daily.

Short-term solutions for reducing flooding this year include repairing and dredging all blocked sewers.

The center also suggested the installation of 450 valves to control canal and river tides by increasing the capacity of the drainage system at vulnerable sites such as Kha Van Can, Nguyen Huu Canh, An Duong Vuong, Phan Dinh Phung and Thanh Da.

According to Cong, the Netherlands-based Haskoning Group has finalized procedures with the city government to finance a technical consulting sub-project worth 1.5 million euro for HCMC’s overall irrigation scheme that was approved by the Government in October.

The irrigation project, which has a total capital investment of VND11.5 trillion, will build large dikes and 12 huge valves and is hoped to prevent flooding for the whole city by 2020 if it can be started in early 2010 with sufficient construction capital, Cong said.

VietNamNet/SGT