Factories, farms arise on upper Gieng river A delegation of scientists and Binh Thuan provincial officials met in Dong Nai province at a conference in early February to discuss solutions to settle pollution in the adjacent area of Binh Thuan and Dong Nai provinces.   Local people need clean water  This was not the first time that people living downstream had to call upon their neighbours to help deal with pollution on Gieng river, which provides clean water to hundreds of thousands of local households. The Gieng river has been polluted for a long time because of waste water from alcohol, wheat factories, pig farms and production workshops in Dong Nai province. As a result, Binh Thuan’s people living on the lower course of Gieng river do not have clean water for daily life and production.  Binh Thuan and Dong Nai agencies have held working sessions since 2011 and many punishments have been imposed, but the problems have not been settled. The Gieng river has been polluted for a long time because of waste water from alcohol, wheat factories, pig farms and production workshops in Dong Nai province. The reports of Binh Thuan and Dong Nai provincial environment departments show that in 2011-2013, the production workshops in the adjacent area between Dong Nai and Binh Thuan did not collect and treat waste water generated during the production process. In 2015, mass fish deaths occurred on Gieng River. The latest report released in January 2018 from the Dong Nai environment department said some local enterprises and pig farms were discharging untreated waste water at night or during rainfall. The Ba Bo canal originates from Binh Duong province, where there are many IZs and residential quarters. The volume of waste water in the canal is high. HCMC has spent trillions of dong in the last 10 years to build reservoirs, anti-flooding works and clean the canal, but it remains seriously polluted. Most recently, local residents said they saw yellow water on the canal which ran from Binh Duong and flowed into the Sai Gon River. The Binh Duong provincial authorities have committed to build the Nam Binh Duong waste water treatment plant for six residential quarters and install automatic waste water monitoring system in IZs to control the quality of the waste water into Ba Bo Canal.  However, the commitment is still unclear.  Nguyen Toan Thang, director of the HCMC environment department, said the municipal authorities would report about the pollution settlement on Ba Bo canal at the HCMC People’s Council meeting, slated for March. Meanwhile, analysts commented that provincial authorities still are not settling common problems as the localities in the upper course sometimes ignore environmental consequences to downstream localities. Nam Lich, VNN