City lacks gusto to shift pollution-causing firms
By Van Nam - The Saigon Times Daily
HCMC – The program to relocate pollution-causing production facilities to outer districts of HCMC is a long way from completion.
Therefore, pollution remained the hot topic at the first question and answer session of the HCMC People’s Council meeting on Thursday between delegates and the leader of the HCMC Department of Natural Resources and Environment.
Dao Anh Kiet, director of the department, said 37 factories had been ordered to treat pollution accordingly and as of now 34 of them had satisfied the requirements.
Kiet admitted, though, there were still many polluting enterprises that have existed for a number of years in District 12. However, he stated that cooperation between related agencies is necessary for the relocation of these firms.
“We plan to completely settle the pollution problem by 2015,” he said.
Regarding a question on the observation network, Kiet said in principle industrial parks were required to have their own observation equipment. According to the department, there are nine air quality observation stations in inner-city areas, but all of them have severely deteriorated.
There are 30 industrial clusters in HCMC, most of which have been developed spontaneously, Kiet said, so controlling pollution is a challenge.
He said the department launched 300-400 environment inspections annually. However, the post-inspection work is within the responsibility of the district people’s committees to monitor whether polluters would live up to their promises, he said.
At the session on Thursday, delegates also expressed concern about the slow implementation of certain environmental projects, especially the environment improvement project along Tham Luong canal stretching 32 kilometers.
In response, a representative of the HCMC Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said the environmental rehabilitation project along Tham Luong canal is now 78% complete. He ascribed the slow deployment to the difficulty in relocating multiple households in districts Binh Tan, Go Vap and 12.