Abandoned shrimp ponds in Phuoc Thai Commune in Dong Nai Province.

With the waters of Thi Vai River beginning to clear up after MSG-maker Vedan was forced to stop discharging untreated effluents into it, farmers living along its banks decided to shift from breeding fish to shrimp.

Sadly, their hopes have been dashed.

Many farmers in Dong Nai Province, where the Taiwan-invested monosodium glutamate maker is based, have lost their investment once again to polluted substances that still exist in the river.

“We returned to the ponds to raise shrimps because the water has become more transparent. But all the shrimps died,” said farmer Do Ba Ngam of Phuoc Thai Commune in the province’s Long Thanh District, who lost all the young shrimp on his 2.6-hectare farm two months ago.

Nguyen Xuan Han of Phuoc Thai Farmers Association said many households in the commune’s Neighborhood 1C have suffered huge losses after their shrimp, covering a total area of 50 hectares, died.

“The shrimps died 20 to 30 days after being released into the ponds,” he said, adding that most farmers have left the ponds empty after the incident.

Vedan last week refused to accept full responsibility for damage caused to the Thi Vai River from its discharge of untreated wastewater for almost 15 years.

The Natural Resources and Environment Institute under the Vietnam National University – HCMC said in its report that the pollution of the river has had negative impacts of varying degrees on a large natural area of 240 square kilometers, including 2,465 hectares of fish and shrimp ponds in Dong Nai, Ba Ria-Vung Tau and Ho Chi Minh City.

Speaking at a meeting to discuss the issue on December 11, Vedan General Director Yang Kun Hsiang said his company did not agree with the finding that it had caused more than 89 percent of the pollution, arguing that the Natural Resources and Environment Institute research failed to take into consideration other sources of pollution such as residents’ domestic wastewater discharge and vehicles plying the river.

The company, however, could not suggest another pollution figure when asked by the Vietnam Environment Administration. Vedan said it does not have adequate statistics to do the calculation.

At the end of the meeting, Vedan admitted it had polluted the main part of the Thi Vai River, a stretch of about 10 kilometers, but reiterated that others were also responsible for the damage, and that its own culpability was not as high as 89 percent.

In September, Vedan had rejected a compensation request for VND569 billion (US$31.7 million) from farmers affected by the pollution in HCMC, Dong Nai and Ba Ria-Vung Tau provinces. The company said it needed more evidence from the authorities and that it could not afford the compensation demanded.

Farmers associations said the damage reported by local farmers through 11,000 petitions was nearly VND1.23 trillion ($67 million), but they had agreed to demand only VND569 billion at first.

But Taiwanese MSG-maker says not at fault for full extent of river pollution

Source: Thanh Nien, Agencies