A canal running though the Hạnh Phúc Industrial Park in Long An Province’s Đức Hòa District is polluted. — VNA/VNS Photo Bùi Giang

LONG AN — The Long An Province People’s Committee has ordered relevant agencies and Đức Hòa District to improve oversight of pollution, especially around industrial parks and industrial clusters, to resolve the problem of the worsening state of canals in the district.

The Department of Natural Resources and Environment and other agencies are required to frequently carry out random checks of producers who discharge large volumes of wastewater and risk causing pollution at the Đức Hòa Đông, Đức Hòa Hạ and Hoàng Gia industrial clusters in the district.

Producers should upgrade their wastewater treatment systems to ensure they meet required standards, the People’s Committee said.

The Đức Hòa People’s Committee will inspect rental house areas that lack a wastewater treatment system or have one that fails to meet required standards.

It will draft a plan to dredge canals polluted by wastewater from industrial production.

It seeks to get rid of the pollution at the three industrial clusters and rental house areas.

The clusters do not have wastewater treatment systems.

Rental house areas in the district release about 6,000 – 8,000 cu.m of untreated wastewater a day into the environment.  

Tests of local canals like An Hạ, Ranh and T1 unsurprisingly show their water is polluted.

The concentration of dissolved oxygen (DO) does not meet national standards while biological oxygen demand exceeds the standard by 1.5 – 3 times, chemical oxygen demand by 1.3 – 6 times and ammonia by 1.2 – 7 times. — VNS