Vietnam Hanoi Urges More Efforts to Protect River Basin Environment

Authorities of Vietnam’s capital city of Hanoi have urged agencies to make more efforts to protect the environment of Nhue-Day river basins. The city’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development has been assigned to speed up the implementation of irrigation upgrading project in the basin of Nhue River with an aim to ensure water volume and serve agriculture production. The municipal Department of Construction is responsible for working out plans on urban wastewater and solid waste treatment, as well as the upgrade of sewerage system and pumping stations in the areas from now until 2015.
Local authorities have also asked the city’s Department of Industry and Trade, and management boards of local industrial parks (IPs) and export processing zones (EPZs) to quicken projects on building common industrial wastewater treatment systems for slaughtering facilities, craft villages, IPs and EPZs, especially those in the river basins. Rivers are heavily polluted by industrial and domestic discharges of nutrients, organic matter and chemicals. The city’s inner lakes are eutrophied and contaminated by faecal matter; they also suffer from sedimentation as well as being used as repositories for construction filling. Hanoi is estimated to discharge 450,000 cu.m to 510,000 cu.m of wastewater per day into lakes and rivers, of which 90% are not treated, causing severe pollution to water resources and the environment. (Ha Noi Moi –New Hanoi Nov 17 p4)