Vietnam shuts down Taiwan-owned factory that dumped wastewater

Apr 22, 2010, 7:06 GMT

Hanoi - Vietnamese authorities have ordered a Taiwanese-owned aluminum window-frame manufacturer to halt operations and fix pollution problems, a provincial official said Thursday.

The Tuan Kung window-frame factory, in the northern province of Hai Duong, had been discharging untreated wastewater into the Ghe River through an illegal water system running parallel to the legal system. Environmental police discovered the hidden wastewater system last week.

Nguyen Trong Thua, deputy chairman of the Hai Duong Provincial People's Committee, said the factory would be closed from April 24 until it 'finishes overcoming the consequences of discharging untreated wastewater into the environment.'

On Wednesday, Tuan Kung deputy executive officer Kuang Hsu-chih Cheng apologized for the violations.

It took authorities two days of digging to uncover the illegal wastewater pipe, which was buried 2.5 metres deep, local newspaper Tuoi Tre reported. The pipe discharged almost all of the factory's wastewater, while a legal system was barely functioning.

Police said the pipe exited just a few hundred metres from a water treatment station which pumps and treats water from the Ghe River and supplies drinking water for people in the district.

Test results showed the untreated water contained 10 times the permitted level of chromium-6, as well as high levels of manganese and other toxic substances.

A 2007 study by the US National Institute of Health found the chemical can cause cancer in animals when ingested in drinking water.

Colonel Luong Minh Thao, deputy director of Vietnam's Environmental Police Department, said the case was as serious as that of Vedan, a Taiwanese-owned condiment company whose untreated wastewater discharges destroyed the ecosystem along a stretch of the Thi Vai River.

The Vietnamese government last year fined Vedan 7.7 million dollars and asked it to compensate farmers affected by the pollution.