Government tries - but fails - to rein in polluters

Vietnam's rivers are fraught with danger. Though the waters are calm, they threaten to eat through the soles of your shoes, and according to some transport companies, even the hull of a ship.

Years of unchecked industrial growth have seen thousands of small and large industries dump toxic sludge and carcinogens into the environment every day. Vast stretches of rivers once lined with fish and shrimp farms have been turned into dead zones. These same rivers feed into the water systems that provide the drinking water for millions.

"Almost everyone living here has a respiratory disease or intestinal sickness," says Le Thi Nung, 49, whose family had earned a living from fishing and aquaculture on the Thi Vai River in the southern province of Dong Nai. "We are so miserable living in this polluted environment. The factories coming here did not bring us any benefits at all, just waste and pollution."

People living along these toxic waterways have complained in the past and occasionally factories have had their wrists slapped. But companies know it is far cheaper to dump waste than to treat it.

Yet in the past few weeks, in an unprecedented move, the government has started to crack down on some of the worst polluters.

In a midnight raid in early October, environmental police nabbed a leather tanning company releasing carcinogenic waste into a river flowing through Ho Chi Minh City. Several starch-producing companies, which release cyanide during processing, were shut down. And after a three-month stakeout, police caught a monosodium glutamate manufacturer in the southern province of Dong Nai, which has been dumping waste through hidden pipes for years, killing a 15km stretch of the Thi Vai River.

Photo: Martha Ann Overland/IRIN

Washing vegetables in the polluted Hanoi lake

Growth first, environment second

For more than a decade, Vietnam's industrial output has proceeded at break-neck speed, with poverty reduction the driving force. Concerns about the environment have taken a back seat, said Doan Canh, professor of environmental studies at the Institute for Tropical Biology in Ho Chi Minh City.

"The Thi Vai River is now almost dead," says Canh, referring to one of the most polluted rivers in southern Vietnam. "No creature can live in such polluted water. And the relevant state agencies let these violations continue for more than 10 years."

But Vietnam lacks water-treatment systems. Not only do most factories lack treatment facilities but even hospitals cannot handle their own waste.

"Most of the water discharged from hospitals in Hanoi flows directly into the sewers without treatment," says Nguyen Dang Binh, vice-director of Hanoi's Natural Resources and Environment Department.

In Ho Chi Minh City, 39 medical facilities have no waste-treatment capacity whatsoever.

Unfortunately, the recent high-profile cases may not be enough to change their habits. Despite environmental protection laws that require them, few industrial parks have water-treatment facilities. Even though Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung this month ordered the government to get tough, there is little evidence that the worst of the violators have been stopped.

Vedan Vietnam, the MSG manufacturer accused of killing a large swath of the Thi Vai River, was only fined US$16,000 and ordered to pay $7.65 million in environmental dues it already owed. Despite local protests, the factory is still in business. The leather tannery in Ho Chi Minh City was ordered to close but it too is still running. This week, frustrated local authorities cut the plant's power supply in an attempt to shut it down.

"They care nothing or very little for environmental protection," Truong Manh Tien, head of the Vietnam Environment Protection Fund, told the state-run media. "In my opinion, enterprises' responsibility towards environmental protection has descended to an alarming level."

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