As shared here recently, a conference on water and wastewater problems was just held in Vietnam. These two articles discuss assessments of problems that came out of the conference.
Peter Huston
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http://www.thanhniennews.com/healthy/?catid=8&newsid=39133
Last Updated: Sunday, June 8, 2008 11:20:33 Vietnam (GMT+07)
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Rivers endanger public health
Delegates at a conference Friday said Vietnam’s water supply is becoming increasingly polluted due to the lack of sewage and waste treatment facilities.
“For many years, sewage and waste from industrial and residential areas have been dumped into rivers untreated,” said Deputy Head of the Construction Ministry Tran Ngoc Chinh at the Hanoi conference on sewage management and other environmental issues.
Chinh said waterways such as the Nhue, Day and Cau rivers in the north and the Dong Nai and Sai Gon rivers in the south were turning grey and smelling fetid.
He said such rivers were no longer healthy water supplies.
Bui Xuan Doan, Deputy Head of the Ministry’s Infrastructure Bureau, said the water pollution rate in the urban areas is especially high.
An estimated 41 percent of untreated sewage from households and 55 percent from industrial zones in Hanoi are discarded into the city’s main rivers such as To Lich, Kim Nguu, Lu and Set, said Doan.
He said recent mud tests at Hanoi lakes and rivers revealed high levels of lead, bronze and zinc.
Meanwhile, trade villages were also polluting rural areas, said Nguyen Thi Kim Dung, an official from the Water Resources and Environment Center.
Dung said the amount of harmful chemicals discarded by one particular trade village in the northern province of Ha Tay is many times higher than the legal limit.
The Health Ministry’s Preventive Medicine and Environment Department said more than 80 percent of the diseases in Vietnam – including cholera, typhoid, hepatitis A, and encephalitis – could be traced to the country’s water supply.
The figure was due not only to pollution that causes diseases, but also to the fact that water can help carry and transmit disease while also contributing indirectly, as in attracting dengue-carrying mosquitoes, for example.
The department also said the nation’s water supply was responsible for more than half of the country’s hospital patients.
Looking long-term
Although several water treatment methods are implemented in Vietnam, most are just short-term solutions for each river, Chinh said.
Chinh said the nation should design water treatment plans for whole river valleys and include several cities and provinces in each plan.
Doan said each locality should have separate drains for rain water and sewage water.
He also said each local area should build underground drains where sewage can be treated before flowing into rivers or lakes.
The criteria for waste processing systems in cities and industrial zones were also discussed at a seminar held in Ho Chi Minh City on Thursday.
The criteria include the completion of sewage treatment systems in all industrial zones by 2010.
At the seminar, experts asked enterprises, who consume resources and dispose large amounts of waste, to cooperate in protecting the environment.
Reported by Quang Duan
http://english.vietnamnet.vn/social/2008/06/787387/
Workshop discusses water resources issues
A workshop on water resources was held in Hanoi on June 6 by the Veitnam Water Supply and Drainage Association.
The workshop, themed 'Environmental Sanitation and integrated management of water resources' discussed threats to Vietnam's water resources.
Concretely, since the renovation process, Vietnam has witnessed a rapid economic development, alongside a quick industrialisation and urbanisation.
As a result, infrastructure facilities in both rural and urban areas have yet to meet the requirement of such a rapid process, even though they have been improved.
Untreated waste water from urban areas, craft villages and farms continue to flow into rivers and ponds, causing serious environmental pollution to land and water resources.
Consequently, many epidemics have occurred in recent years, producing negative effects on people's health and hampering the country's socio-economic development.
Even though the Government and ministries and agencies in charge of environmental issues have issued legal documents on environmental protection, changes for the better in the aspect have yet to be seen.
Therefore, the workshop discussed measures for a better environmental sanitation, waste treatment, and the promotion of State management on environmental protection, as well as the management and treatment of waste water to reduce pollution of water resources.
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