-          ${bigcity_Ho_Chi_Minh_City:”Ho Chi Minh City”} scientists are studying a model of watershed protection approach introduced by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for controlling the alarming water pollution of the Saigon River.

Lam Minh Triet, director of HCMC Institute for Water and Environment Technology, said that many countries have been successful in applying the approach of EPA to control the pollution for the watersheds. Concretely, watershed protection approach is a five – year model and includes six sequent processes of monitoring, appraising, defining priority targets, developing management strategies, planning for management and implementation.

“This is the first time the city applies the approach of EPA for controlling pollution of the Saigon River, and this model could be applied for other river basins in Vietnam,” Triet told the Daily on the sidelines of a seminar on measures to fight pollution of the Saigon River that was held here yesterday. At the moment, his institute is making a master project of seeking feasible solutions to protect the water source of the river so as to ensure crude water supply for the whole city in the future. He said with this master project, the institute suggested HCMC, Binh Duong and Tay Ninh provinces to carry out 13 priority projects to quickly control the river’s pollution between now and 2015.

The project has total implementing budget of over VND17 trillion, or some US$820 million. The Saigon River has been severely polluted by receiving huge amounts of untreated industrial and household wastewater each day. At the moment, HCMC alone discharges over one million cubic meters of household wastewater into the river each day. Furthermore, Binh Duong is also discharging 41,500 cubic meters of urban wastewater and another amount of over 40,000 cubic meters of industrial wastewater each day. Le Viet Thang, a scientist of the institute, told the seminar that a recent research had discovered that over 80% of the household wastewater along the river basin was still untreated, all flowing into the Saigon River.

Tran Van Quang, vice head of Binh Duong’s Environmental Protection Agency, said that the province had just installed automatic monitoring systems at six industrial parks including Song Than 1, Song Than 2, Dong An, Vietnam-Singapore 1, Viet Huong 1 and My Phuoc 1. Quang said that the automatic monitoring results showed that almost all the treated wastewater was still unqualified in accordance with the environmental standards. “Binh Duong has over 5,000 industrial enterprises, but the number of enterprises treating the wastewater properly is less than 20%,” he said, adding this has been the main reason to cause heavier pollution for the water source of the river.

To help controlling the pollution of the river, Quang said the Binh Duong government has issued a decision to refuse investments in three production areas causing heavy pollution comprising chemical production, waxing and plating, and textile. The Saigon River has total length of 256 kilometers covering a total basin area of 5,560 square kilometers. The river plays an important role in the economic and social development of Binh Phuoc, Tay Ninh, Binh Duong and HCMC.