Residents along a local canal say they have to use tainted water to bathe and cook with.

Toxic wastewater and other pollution from a Tan Hiep Phat beverage factory have made communities in Vinh Phu Commune in Thuan An District barely livable, local residents have complained.

Affected areas include the commune’s Tay, Trung and Hoa Long hamlets, they said.

Black water

Locals in Phu Hoi Hamlet along the Bo Lac Canal said they used to use water from the canal for washing and drinking after boiling.

But they said the canal has turned black in the last two years since the factory opened.

Polluted water from the canal has also damaged residents’ gardens and killed fish in their ponds, they say.

“I used to raise fish but they’ve all died due to polluted water spilled into the pond from the canal,” said Nguyen Thi Hiep of Trung Hamlet.

Other Trung residents also said they had to use polluted underground water every day for their daily needs.

Illegal dumping

Residents in Tay Hamlet, located across a canal from Tan Hiep Phat Company, have also complained of pollution caused by the company.

On May 11, inspectors from the provincial Department of Natural Resources and Environment fined the company VND42.5 million (US$2,485) for not treating wastewater properly before discharging it into the environment.

But to make things worse, inspectors early last month found the company had installed two heavily polluting coal burners without registering the equipment.

Last month, the Binh Duong Department of Natural Resources and Environment admitted in a report to the provincial People’s Council that Tan Hiep Phat Company had discharged wastewater contaminated with polluting substances at dangerously high levels.

Illegal filling

In 2007, Tan Hiep Phat requested permission from local authorities to fill the Bo Lac Canal and install a sewer system.

However, the company later filled a 20-meter canal section before even obtaining the approval.

The People’s Committee of Thuan An District then fined the company on three separate occasions for the violation, ordering it to restore the canal to its previous condition. The company paid the fines but refused to fix the canal.

According to the provincial Department of Natural Resources and Environment, the company had also asked for permission to fill another 12-meter section of the canal and promised to install sewers. The company said it wanted to widen roads leading to and from the factory.

However, Tan Hiep Phat once again began filling the site before obtaining permission.

The department then found the company had filled up to 40 meters of the canal and installed smaller sewers than it had promised in its application.

The filling of the canal then caused flooding in residential neighborhoods during rainstorms.

Relapse

Many residents living on the banks of the Ba Bo Canal, located between Binh Duong Province’s Thuan An District and Ho Chi Minh City’s Thu Duc District, said pollution on the canal had receded for a short period after local media reports exposed environmental malpractice by several companies in the area since 2005.

But they now say pollution in the canal has relapsed over the past few days.

Le Thanh Tien, a resident living near the canal, said water in the canal had emitted a terrible stench over the past several days and that the foam from chemical substances had covered a large area of the water’s surface.

“Pollution has become serious again,” he said.

‘Solutions’

Early this month, the HCMC Flood Steering Committee at the municipal People’s Committee asked the municipal administration to grant an additional VND437 billion (US$24.5 million) to a project to clean up Ba Bo Canal.

A project to dredge a 1.9-kilometer section of the canal in an effort to clean it started in October last year but little work has been completed due to site clearance problems.

Nguyen Ngoc Cong, deputy director of the steering committee, said the agency had asked the city People’s Committee to increase the project investment from VND307 billion ($17.23 million) to VND744 billion ($41.76 million).

The HCMC Department of Natural Resources and Environment said the dredging of the upper stream of the Ba Bo Canal had moved much slower than planned. Many sections of the canal have re-filled with garbage soon after being dredged, the department said.

The section near Provincial Road 13 has also been flooded regularly after garbage obstructed the canal’s flow.

Foam forming from toxic chemicals on the Ba Bo Canal between Binh Duong Province and Ho Chi Minh City in April 2008. Pollution in the canal has returned over the past few days after a brief respite.

VietNamNet/Thanh Nien