A technical survey briefed to local government leaders and representatives of Vedan Vietnam concludes that the MSG maker caused eighty to ninety percent of the pollution of the Thi Vai River.

Vedan discharged waste water to the Thi Vai River for years.

Nearly fifteen months after Vedan Vietnam was detected discharging large quantities of untreated liquid waste directly into the Thi Vai river, researchers from the HCM City Institute of Environment and Natural Resources (IENR), representatives of farmers in Dong Nai and Ba Ria-Vung Tau provinces and HCM City, local officials and Vedan’s top managers met on December 7 to hear a technical assessment of damage to the river attributable to Vedan’s operations.

In this meeting, closed to the press, researchers reportedly held Vedan responsible for eighty to ninety percent of the industrial pollution found in water samples. IENR’s Bui Ta Long said that water samples collected from February-April 2008 indicated that Vedan Vietnam discharged more than 100,000 cubic meters of waste water into the river every month.

The area impacted by Vedan-sourced pollution extended for ten kilometers along the Thi Vai river, IENR found. The river in this area was heavily polluted. The water there was black, stank and was deadly to all kinds of fish.

According to newspapers, the Institute’s report states that at least 2700 hectares of aquaculture enterprises were affected by the pollution, some 2000 ‘severely,’ including over 2100 hectares in Dong Nai province and nearly 600 hectares for Ba Ria-Vung Tau.

Vedan: report ‘lacks a scientific basis’

Vedan, which earlier had refused to consider compensation to farmers until the IENR report was complete, is said to have heatedly denounced the IENR study. It called it ‘an initial technical report, lacking a scientific basis because the samples were collected during the dry season, not the wet season (when Vedan was actually discovered to be discharging untreated waste into the river). The Vedan representatives said IENR should review the soundness of its observation model. Thanh Nien reports that the company representatives refused to sign minutes of the meeting.

Vice Chairman Nguyen Van Phung of the HCM City Farmers’ Association told journalists that “we believe in the scientists’ observations but it is necessary to accurately define the scale and level of pollution caused by Vedan to set the amount of compensation for aquaculturists. The fish farmers are very anxious because this case has dragged on over one year”.

IENR head Nguyen Van Phuoc said that the institute “is willing to provide Vedan with our documents and models to verify our observation results for the Thi Vai river.”

The Environment Agency intends to convene another meeting on December 11 to unify official views on the extent of Vedan’s responsibility for the egregious and unprecedented environmental disaster.

The Thi Vai river is 30km long, rising in Long Thanh district of Dong Nai province and discharging into a bay on the north side of the resort city of Vung Tau. The river basin is the home to many big industrial zones and it receives a huge volume of industrial waste water.

In September 2008, environmental police caught Vedan in the act of discharging untreated waste water into the river by means of concealed pipes that circumvented the company’s own waste treatment system. a piping system that directed waste around the firms.

Late in October 2009, the public was consternated to learn that Vedan had been awarded a certificate of merit for “Safe Products for Community Health.” Amid a general outcry, this award by a Dong Nai government office was revoked after the local media reported the case.

In late November 2009, the Dong Nai Provincial Department of Natural Resources and Environment collected 111 billion dong (over six million dollars) in environmental remediation fees from Vedan. The firm has also paid fines of 267 million dong.

Vinh Minh