LookAtVietnam – Around 70 per cent of the canals in HCM City are heavily polluted, according to the latest report from the city’s Environmental Protection Department.

Around 70% of the canals in HCM City are heavily polluted.

The water in many of the city’s canals was clean 10 years ago but now it is black, said Tu, who has lived for 50 years in a “temporary” hamlet near Bang Ky Bridge in Ward 13 of Binh Thanh District.

“Ten years ago, this section of the canal was so clear it was often crowded with children and adults swimming. Even during flood-tide, they could catch lots of gray mullet fish here.”

The water has since turned black and smelly and is a breeding place for mosquitoes and flies.

Thuong, a local student in sixth grade, said, “I get stung by so many mosquitoes that I don’t bother slapping them.”

Another resident said eight children in the hamlet have caught petechial fever. Diseases caused by a lack of proper hygeine and paracites such scabies and zona were also common, he said.

Dire situation

It was no longer possible to wash clothes in the water.

Tu said, “The nearby dyeing factory and pig farm still discharges wastewater illegally into the canal. There are days that the water is red with pig’s blood, hair and guts.”

“People living here drop litter and defecate into the water,” he added.

Similarly, the ditch across Ton Tho Tuong Bridge on Phan Van Han Street of Ward 17, Binh Thanh District, is filled with so much household rubbish, that people can walk on it without sinking. And the smell is terrible.

People, whose houses are on the banks, have to contend with garbage coming into their houses when it floods.

Bay, an old woman who has lived there for a long time said, “I’ve gotten used to it.”

An official of the ward said, “We usually dredge this narrow waterway but it fills back up with garbage in a few days.”

It is the same at the U Cay ditch in District 8, and canals where boats come to trade such as Doi, Te and Luong Van Can.

Despite large-scale water improvement and environ-mental sanitation projects that are operating at Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe and Tan Hoa-Lo Gom canals, the result of the latest tests that the Environment Protection Department carried out in the third quarter of this year shows no change in the pollution levels and only slight improvements to the water quality.

Depending on the site, bacteria levels range from 2.56 to a staggering 447 times higher than three months before.

Bacteria levels at Tham Luong-Vam Thuat canals are 580 times higher than acceptable, 43 to 903 times safe levels in Tau Hu-Ben Nghe canals, and from 430 to a deadly 23,000 times safe levels at Tan Hoa-Lo Gom canals.

Dr Nguyen Dinh Tuan from the Natural Resources and Environmental College said around 80 per cent of water used by city residents is discharged directly into the environment, accounting for half of the pollution.

The canal environment sanitation projects are only treating the symptoms of pollution by dredging the canal beds. Wastewater treatment facilities are needed.

In addition the interlacing canal system and irregular East Sea tides prevent water from draining away to the river.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News