ĐỒNG NAI — Đồng Nai Province has suspended all dredging and sand mining projects in the Đồng Nai River.

Speaking at a meeting on sand mining management on Tuesday, Từ Nam Thành, deputy director of the province’s Department of Transport, said all ongoing dredging and mining works have to cease.

A police spokesman said since late 2015 officers busted 80 illegal sand mining operations, including some large ones, and seized 37 boats and mining equipment.

Though the incidence of illegal sand exploitation in the Đồng Nai River had reduced, it had not gone away, he said.

Huge profits and the lack of severe consequences - illegal sand miners do not face criminal charges - were the reason behind the rampant mining, he said.

Illegal sand collection sites also operated along riverbanks. A recent investigation found 49 of 60 such sites to be illegal, including 35 which purchased sand from illegal miners, according to the police.

To effectively stop the illegal mining in the Đồng Nai River, all these illegal sites must be “eliminated”, it said.

Officials from Tân Phú and Định Quán districts said licensed miners in the upper Đồng Nai do not scrupulously stick to their licence terms.

Many of the licences were issued in neighbouring Lâm Đồng Province, they said.

Nguyễn Văn Nghị, deputy chairman of the Tân Phú District People’s Committee, urged provincial authorities to join hands with their Lâm Đồng counterparts to stop the sand mining in stretches of the river between the two provinces.

The 15 mining licences issued by Lâm Đồng would surely worsen land erosion along the riverbanks in Tân Phú, he lamented.

A Đồng Nai transport official said all dredging and mining projects licensed by both Đồng Nai Province and the Ministry of Transport have been suspended.

These include work to dredge the Thái Thiên stream between the Thị Vải River and Kim Nhật inland wharf (in Phước Thái Commune, Long Thành District), the Ông Trung channel (in Biên Hoà city), the Buông and Bến Gỗ Rivers (Biên Hoà), and a waterway in the Đồng Kho River (in Phước An Commune, Nhơn Trạch District).

The department, on orders from the People’s Committee, has urged all the miners to clear their machinery, equipment and workers from the work spots. — VNS