Illustrative image (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNS/VNA) - Nearly 90 percent of Vietnam'surban sewage is discharged untreated directly into its rivers and streams, accordingto a report by the Ministry of Construction.
The report also revealed alarming figures for the Vietnam’stwo biggest cities – Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City – regarding the handling ofhousehold sewage from millions of residents.
The capital city currently has six wastewater treatmentplants. They include the Kim Lien plant with a capacity of 3,700cu.m per day,Truc Bach with 2,300cu.m, Bay Mau with 13,300cu.m, Bac Thang Long-Van Tri with42,000cu.m and the largest one, Yen So, is able to process about 200,000cu.m ofwastewater a day.
The plants, however, only managed to filter 22 percent of thetotal sewage discharged every day in the city, while the remaining 78 percentwent straight from houses and restaurants to the environment.
The Hanoi People’s Committee said in its own report that theconstruction of new wastewater treatment plants was seriously behind schedule.
It also admitted difficulties in realising the MasterPlanning on Drainage in Hanoi by 2030. According to the master planning, whichwas signed in 2013, up to 90 percent of the city’s population would have theirsewage collected and treated by 2030 and the rate was due to reach 100 percentby 2050.
Capital shortage was the main concern of the cityauthorities. Several priority projects were still on paper, said the HanoiPeople’s Committee, as building a sewage system required a tremendous sum ofmoney from the city’s already strained budget. Meanwhile, there were certainobstacles to call for funding from the private sector.
In the south, HCM City had around 21 percent of urban sewagewater treated – a similar percentage to Hanoi’s.
There were three wastewater plants currently running in thecity with total capacity reaching 302,000 cubic metres – equal to just a fifthof the sewage discharged across the city every day, which was estimated at 1.57million cubic metres.
They were Binh Hung plant capable of handling 141,000cu.m, BinhHung Hoa with 30,000 cu.m and Tham Luong-Ben Cat with 131,000cu.m.
The city was supposed to build seven sewage treatment plantsaccording to a city drainage plan between 2016 and 2020.
When those new plants are completed and start operating, upto 1.4 million cu.m will be filtered daily, accounting for over 90 percent of thetotal city’s discharged wastewater.
That scenario, however, was not likely to happen soon as allseven plant projects were still calling for investors.
Director of the Construction Ministry’s Department of Science& Technology and Environment Vu Ngoc Anh said that there were 43 urbanwastewater treatment plants nationwide with a total capacity of over926,000cu.m per day.
“The issue lies in how to thoroughly connect the sewer systemto collect and handle sewage. This is why the (national) treatment rate is solow, at around 13 percent,” he told the Thanh Nien newspaper.
Another report on Vietnam’s urban sewage management by theWorld Bank agreed with such a low number, saying that only 10 percent of thecountry’s total sewage actually went through a treatment plant.
The country was thirsty for investment – estimated at about 8.3 billion USD– to build drainage infrastructure for 36 million people livingin cities, according to the World Bank’s report.
Head of the Institute of Environmental Science andEngineering, Dr Nguyen Viet Anh, admitted that the biggest challenge toVietnam’s urban drainage was how to connect the household sewers to thecitywide network.
“Most of the drainage projects funded by ODA (officialdevelopment assistance) did not cover that (sewer linkages). And after theproject was completed, it was very hard for the authorities or the communitiesto do the connection work,” Anh said./.
