Alarm over paper mill threatening
rivers in Vietnam’s Mekong Delta
A man stands next to
the canal where wastewater from the Long Giang Industrial Park is discharged
in Tien Giang Province, southern Vietnam.
An
environmental expert has called on the Tien Giang administration to pull the
plug on a Taiwan-invested paper project he says may pollute one of the most
important waterways in the province as well as the Mekong Delta.
Assoc.
Prof. Le Trinh, head of the Institute for Environmental Science and
Development, is so concerned about the potential negative impacts the Dai
Duong paper plant will have on the province’s Tien River, that he has
petitioned the provincial administration to stop the project.
The
250-kilometer long Tien (Front) River and 200-kilometer Hau (Back) River are
the two most important waterways in the Mekong Delta in southern Vietnam. The
Hau River is also under threat from another paper mill, run by Hong Kong’s Lee & Man
Paper.
The
Dai Duong facility, located in Tien Giang’s Long Giang Industrial Park, is
operated by the Dai Duong Co. Ltd., and fully owned by Taiwan’s Chang Yang
Holding.
The
paper plant discharges its wastewater through two local canals before finally
reaching the Tien River, where “many of the province’s biggest water
suppliers collect surface water for treatment before supplying clean water to
millions of households,” Trinh said in his petition.
The
pundit, who is also deputy head of the Vietnamese Council for Environmental
Impact Assessment, said the paper mill will also affect numerous local
farmers as their agriculture production may be “adversely affected by the
facility’s wastewater and smoke.”
Toxic
wastewater concerns
According
to Assoc. Prof. Trinh, the paper making industry requires a number of
chemicals for production, and the wastewater dumped by the facility contains
various hard-to-treat toxic materials.
Among
those toxins are organic chlorides such as dioxin, which can be absorbed by
fish and other aquatic animals before they are served at the dinner table.
Trinh
said several studies prove that it is impossible to completely remove dioxin
from chlorine dioxide, the chemical compound used for pulp whitening. “With
that in mind, it is impossible to not worry about the Dai Duong plant,
especially when it dumps as many as 4,950 cubic meters of wastewater on a
daily basis,” Trinh said.
The
expert added that the wastewater treatment capacity of the Long Giang
Industrial Park is unable to completely handle such a large amount of
wastewater from the paper mill.
“If
we let the plant operator treat its own wastewater, who can be sure that it
will not cause an environmental incident?” he questioned.
In
that scenario, Trinh said, toxic wastewater will spill to the Tien River, its
tributaries and the local canal systems.
The
number of people affected by such a disaster would be equal to that of the
Formosa crisis in central Vietnam, he added.
“As
an expert who has been studying the environment in Tien Giang for years, I
earnestly suggest that the provincial Party Committee, People’s Council and
administration stop allowing this project,” he said.
Scrap
paper as raw material
According
to documents reviewed by Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper, Chang
Yang Holding first proposed the Dai Duong project to Tien Giang authorities
in January 2016, and submitted the necessary documents and papers on February
18.
Less
than a month later, on March 11, the Tien Giang administration gave the
developer in-principle approval for the proposal, and only four days later,
the Taiwanese company received the investment license for the project, with a
total investment of US$220 million.
With
all paperwork completed, the developer leased as many as eight land plots,
spanning a total of 227,530 square meters in the Long Giang Industrial Park,
to build its plant.
The
Dai Duong paper mill produces four types of paper, including the double-ply
Duplex and Kraf paper from scrap papers, with a total capacity of 175,000
metric tons a year in its first phase.
The
developer has received a number of incentives from the Tien Giang
administration, such as a low corporate income tax of 10 percent, compared to
the normal 20 percent. The Taiwanese firm also enjoys a corporate income tax
exemption for four years from the first year it begins to post a profit, and
a 50 percent tax cut for the subsequent nine years.
Pham
Anh Tuan, deputy chairman of Tien Giang administration, confirmed to Tuoi
Tre that he had received the ‘sincere petition’ from Trinh.
“We
will invite scientists to assess the environmental issues in regard to the
Dai Duong plant Trinh has raised,” Tuan said.
“Tien
Giang authorities will strictly follow the order by the prime minister, which
is to never trade the local environment for new economic projects.”
TUOI TRE
NEWS
|
Thứ Tư, 16 tháng 11, 2016
Đăng ký:
Đăng Nhận xét (Atom)
Không có nhận xét nào:
Đăng nhận xét