The survey on the environmental protection supervision conducted by the National Assembly Standing Committee’s Supervision Taskforce in 15 economic zones and 48 craft villages, has found out that local authorities have been gathering strength to develop production, while ignoring the measures to protect the environment.
Experts have also warned that if local authorities continue putting economic development before environment protection, the state would have to spend 3 dong from every 1 dong collected to remedy the environmental pollution.
Waste treatment systems only run to welcome inspectors
The supervision taskforce has found out that very few economic zones have concentrated waste water treatment systems. The Chu Lai Open Economic Zone was established in 2003 already, but the site clearance for the construction of two concentrated waste water treatment factories has just been kicked off.
The 2009’s report by the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment’s inspectors showed that a lot of production workshops and factories regularly discharge untreated waste water to the environment. A lot of production bases do not have waste water treatment systems, while others have, but the systems only run when inspectors come.
Enterprises would rather pay fines for the behavior of discharging untreated waste water to the environment, rather than spending money on running waste treatment systems, because the fines, fixed by the State, are much lower than the expenses enterprises have to pay to treat waste.
The report by the National Assembly Standing Committee’s supervision taskforce shows that the fees collected are just equal to 1/10 of the total expenses needed to treat waste. Every year, the State allocates 1 percent of the total budget to the environment protection. However, due to the current budget allocation mechanism, the sums of money allocated to economic zones remain modest, thus making the environment protection in the zones ineffective.
According to Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and the Environment, Bui Cach Tuyen, most of the localities have been found as making inappropriate investment in the environment protection.
Only four provinces: Binh Dinh, Khanh Hoa, Nghe An and Ha Tinh, can clarify the budget allocated to the environment protection in economic zones. Ha Tinh proved to be the locality which spends the biggest sum of money on environment protection in economic zones, 618 million dong in 2009. Meanwhile, the lowest sum of money was spent by the Van Phong Economic Zone in Khanh Hoa province, only 10 million dong in 2009 and 30 million dong in 2010.
Most craft villages polluted
According to the General Department of Environment, 46 percent of the 52 surveyed craft villages have been found as seriously polluted, 27 percent of villages polluted at medium level, while 27 percent slightly polluted.
A new problem has arisen that in many concentrated production bases, production households not only move their production workshops to, but bring their families as well. The Dong Ky industrial workshops’ cluster in Bac Ninh province is a typical example. This, according to experts, should be seen as a “way to expand pollution”.
Experts have warned that if local authorities fail to put industrial workshops’ clusters under control, Vietnam will not only have to spend money to remedy the pollution in the current 3,355 craft villages, but also in a larger area in the next few years.
Source: SGTT
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