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Tough action proposed as yet another serious environmental pollution case is exposed.

The Hao Duong leather company could lose its investment license and face criminal charges for releasing untreated carcinogenic effluents into the Dong Dien River in Ho Chi Minh City’s Nha Be District.

The company was caught in the act during a surprise raid last week.

This is the latest in a series of illegal wastewater dumping activities of the firm over the past four years, the city’s Department of Natural Resources and Environment said in a dispatch Monday.

The firm has flouted environment codes at least 20 times since 2005 and 10 times in this year alone, the department said.

Since Hao Duong, which began operating in 2003, upgraded its capacity in mid-September, the firm has discharged large amounts of untreated wastewater, estimated at around 2,500 cubic meters everyday, through a floating pipe system to the Dong Dien River, the department said.

The toxic effluents, found containing a cancer-causing substance, were dozens of times higher than permissible levels.

The company had also released around 48 tons of waste mud and other leather waste into the vicinity, leaving nearby companies and locals bearing the brunt of the stinky odour and other environmental impacts.

Hao Duong had also deliberately taken away several plastic pipes meant for discharging the untreated wastewater last Sunday after the police had cordoned off the dumping system a day earlier pending further investigations, investigators told Thanh Nien.

Given its dire environment violations, the Department of Natural Resources and Environment Monday proposed that the city police force press criminal charges against the company. This marks the second time since July that the department has proposed criminal action against the firm.

The HCMC Export Processing and Industrial Zones Authority (HEPZA) has also been told to revoke the investment license and official stamp of the company.

Ngo Anh Tuan, Deputy Head of the Environment Desk under HEPZA told a local newspaper Monday that the police should factor in other allegations leveled against Hao Duong, including the releasing of dirty wastewater into the Dong Dien River via another underlying system.

The firm had earlier reported to authorities concerned that it had jettisoned this wastewater treatment facility, Tuan said.

Bravado, bluster

It was not until he was brought to the “crime scene” last weekend while the wastewater system was dumping blackened effluents into the Dong Dien River that Tang Van Duc, Hao Duong’s chairman, confessed to committing environmental violations.

But he claimed that the firm was releasing just 1,000-1,200 cubic meters of untreated wastewater per day instead of around 2,500 cubic meters as alleged.

Prior to Duc’s arrival, the police had worked through the night to catch the leather processing plant red-handed.

At a meeting with the HEPZA management on September 15, chairman Duc had admitted his firm had released untreated wastewater to the river since late 2007 and promised to stop the illegal activity beginning September 17.

But a week later, a surprise inspection by HEPZA discovered the firm was still discharging blackened, stinking wastewater into the Dong Dien River. Tests proved the effluents fell far short of safety standards.

Early this year, the Department of Natural Resources and Environment found that the firm had failed to build a wastewater treatment facility as committed. The department had asked the municipal government to fine the firm twice in April and June.

It was three months ago that the city first called for criminal action against the firm for the dumping of untreated wastewater into the river through another, different pipe system. The department also withdrew the wastewater dumping license of the firm in July.

The Hao Duong case comes in the wake of many environmental scandals, led by the illegal wastewater dumping by Taiwanese monosodium glutamate (MSG) maker Vedan Vietnam in southern Dong Nai Province and its South Korean counterpart Miwon in the northern province of Phu Tho.

At a meeting last week, the HCMC government said that mass inspections of industrial parks and export processing zones would continue until the end of March next year.

Companies based in industrial parks or export processing zones will have their licenses revoked or be removed from the areas if their wastewater systems fall short of the required standards, the city administration warned.

Source : Thanh Nien Daily