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Ho Chi Minh City starts clean up of canals

Hung Vong

HCM CITY — Construction on a sewage drainage project in the Nhieu Loc Canal in HCM City began on Wednesday, as part of a larger city effort to clean up dirty canals that are seriously affecting people’s health.

The US$29.9 million project, being built by a Chinese joint venture, should be completed in three years.

Tran Minh Dung, deputy director of the HCM City Department for Transport and Public Works, said the new sewer, which receives polluted water under the Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe Canal, should help turn the canal into a green and clean one.

"The project should help tackle flooding problems also," said Nguyen Van Dua, deputy chairman of HCM City People’s Committee. "It will help separate storm water run-off from waste water. This is the biggest environmental problem which has not yet been addressed by the city."

Alan Coulthart, urban sector co-ordinator for the World Bank in Viet Nam, said they were "very pleased to be supporting the Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe project which seeks to improve the health and daily lives of around 1.2 million residents. Many of the people in the basin area are subjected to flooding with raw sewage up to 1m deep, several times a year."

The project consists of a 8.8km long, 3m in diametre sewer running along the Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe Canal in Phu Nhuan District and and a drainage outfall, some 20m under the Sai Gon River.

The Chinese companies Tianjin and CHEC 3 are also building a pumping station that will receive waste water from the Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe Basin before discharging it through the the pipeline under the Sai Gon River, said Dung.

Coulthart said the "project will also encourage economic development — directly by reducing the damage and disruption arising from flooding — and indirectly by presenting a better image of the city to potential investors and tourists.

"Everyone entering the city from the airport crosses Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe Canal and gets a poor first impression of a city. The project in general will change that."

Dung, who also directs the city environmental sanitation project, said another $18 million was to be spent on a second pumping station that will process 64,000cu. m of waste water per hour.

HCM City has an administrative area of 2,079 sq.km including a 440sq.km area of 17 inner districts divided into four main basins.

The 33sq.km Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe Basin covers about half of the city centre and has many commercial and cultural premises, but only limited industrial facilities.

The Nhieu-Loc Thi Nghe Canal is heavily polluted by untreated water from a combined sewer system (consisting of 34.6km of primary pipes, 87.3km of secondary pipes and 150km of tertiary sewers) which receives both storm water runoff and waste water.

The untreated waste water in the canals poses a serious threat to public health.

The Environmental Sanitation Project will directly address the problem by expanding the capacity and coverage of drains and by increasing the hydraulic capacity of the Nhieu Loc-Thi Nghe Canal.

Screened waste water will be discharged into the tidal reaches of the Sai Gon River in such a way as to ensure rapid dilution. Secondary treatment may be affordable around 2010.

The project also aims to reduce water-related and insect-borne diseases, in particular, diarrhoea, dysentery, typhoid and malaria.

Increased investment and higher residential and commercial property values in the area are expected when the projects are completed, Dua said.

The first stage of the city’s sanitation plan covers 3,046ha in districts 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, Tan Binh, Binh Thanh and Binh Chanh.

The total cost of the project is about $200 million, including a 40-year consessional loan of $166 million approved by the World Bank in July 2001, Dung said. — VNS