The Hao Duong Leather Tanning JS Company was caught red-handed to discharge waste water to the environment in October 2008.

Inspectors will check companies operating in the industries that can cause pollution, such as chemical production, dying, textiles, cooking processing, steel rolling, cement, and aluminum refining among others.

Big-scale enterprises, which discharge more than 100 cubic metres of waste water per day, will be scrutinized first.

According to the HCM City People’s Council’s Economics and Budget Department, environmental pollution in the city is getting serious. Water from many rivers and canals like Thay Cai and An Ha in Cu Chi District, Ba Bup and Tran Quang Co in Hoc Mon District have turned black and smell badly. All 55 canals and rivers in Binh Chanh District are polluted.

The department said that canals are polluted because of waste water from factories in the industrial and export processing zones of Tan Phu Trung, Le Minh Xuan and Vinh Loc.

A report released by the HCM City People’s Committee in late-2008 also said that HCM City is facing many sources of pollution, including waste from industrial zones and factories.

Inspectors will visit enterprises without advanced notice.

HCM City presently has 141 pollution-causing enterprises which are located in residential areas. Many of them have been requested to move to the suburbs but they have not.

Enterprises that violated the law on the environment will be closed or punished heavily if they are discovered to continue breaching the rules this time.

VietNamNet/DT