Mekong Delta: enterprises dodge environmental regulations
Despite warnings and punishments, enterprises have been using sophisticated methods to ignore regulations, damaging the environment and putting rivers in the Mekong Delta at risk.
Prior to that, the municipal authorities handed out a fine of VND904 million on Ecotech Can Tho (non-hazardous waste treatment company) and VND400 million on Hong Linh (brick manufacturer)
Most recently, on July 29, the Tra Vinh Police notified the provincial People’s Committee’s decision on a fine of VND358 million on Cuu Long Seafood JSC for discharging untreated waste water into the environment.
The behavior was caught red-handed by a government agency which began an investigation following criticism of local people.
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Colonel Nguyen Hong Linh from the Can Tho City Police noted that the tricks played by the enterprises were sophisticated.
“They discharge waste water when it gets dark, in storm or rain. They have many sewers which bring waste water to the environment,” he said. “This allows them to easily erase the traces."
Therefore, it is difficult for police to ambush the violators to collect evidence about their illegal behavior.
The police, for example, had to spend a lot of effort to clarify the case of Phuong Duy Company in Tra Noc 2 Industrial Zone discharging untreated waste water to the Hau River in September 2015.
At first, they caught a Phuong Duy’s worker, Nguyen Hoai An, driving a motorboat carrying a bag of black solid waste and dropping the bag into the Cai Chom Canal.
“If we had not observed the boat carefully, we could not have found it was discharging waste, because it was just like other normal fishing boats,” a policeman said.
After examining the production area, the police discovered Phuong Duy discharging waste water from two places belonging to the boiler area through two pipelines.
In fact, the inspectors from the Ministry of Natural Resources & the Environment and the police had examined the company, but did not discover the pipelines.
Phuong Duy was one of the companies that local people in the districts of O Mon, Cai Rang, Thot Not and Co Do have many times complained about as the discharged waste water had affected their lives.
The other companies included ADC, Sohafood, Huy Viet Tay Do and Thanh Binh, a slaughterhouse. The five companies were fined a total of VND1.4 billion for violations.
