VietNamNet Bridge – The HCMC government on Tuesday urged district authorities to list polluters before September 15 for relocation, especially those in residential areas.

HCMC Vice Chairman Le Manh Ha at a meeting on Tuesday with the municipal Department of Natural Resources and Environment and district-level governments demanded that manufacturing facilities that are unsuitable for the city’s planning and cause environmental pollution must be relocated to industrial zones.

The city will focus on relocating manufacturing facilities in residential areas causing serious pollution and inappropriate with the zoning plan. However, those facilities leaving no bad impacts on the environment and are suitable to the planning can stay in residential areas.

The city since 2002 has mapped out a plan to move 1,402 pollution-causing manufacturers to industrial parks and outlying areas, said Nguyen Van Hong, deputy director of the environment department. Most of the target entities have already been relocated up to now, with only six firms yet to be moved, he said.

Besides, two out of 37 companies, namely Ha Tien Cement and Ba Son Shipbuilding Factory, have yet to move in line with a decision on relocating polluters issued by the Prime Minister in 2003.

However, after being moved to nearby regions for a long time, many relocated enterprises have continued causing serious pollution. For instance, 31 washing and dyeing companies in Dong Hung Thuan Ward in District 12 have constantly discharged gases and wastewater with high pollution levels, thus polluting the nearby residential areas.

Speaking with the Daily after the meeting on Tuesday, Cao Tung Son, vice head of the Environment Management Office under the environment department, advocated the policy of relocating polluters to nearby regions, but the problem is the lack of infrastructure for the manufacturers like wastewater and emission gas treatment systems.

Another difficulty hindering the relocation is that many polluters in residential areas do not want to move to industrials parks and industrial zones, Son said. Furthermore, industrial park operators are also reluctant to take these polluters, especially when many of them are petty entities that just need a small area for their factory construction.

Therefore, “local polluters in the coming time will mainly be relocated into industrial zones already equipped with complete wastewater treatment systems , with 31 facilities in District 12’s Dong Hung Thuan Ward targeted first,” according to Son.

Source: SGT