An Giang: Many boreholes contaminated with arsenic

According to the VNA newsletter issued on November 12, in 4 districts of An Phu, Phu Tan, Tan Chau and Cho Moi (An Giang), 544 out of nearly 2,700 drilled wells have been found to have water contaminated with arsenic, while called arsenic. The above data are based on an initial survey by UNICEF and the Institute of Public Health Hygiene.

People in An Giang do not know that water is contaminated with arsenic, so they still use water . (Photo: Labor, VNN)

These are 130 m deep wells, supported by UNICEF and provincial funds and people have been drilling and drilling for many years.

Among arsenic-contaminated wells, 100 wells are contaminated with levels exceeding the drinking water standard, 445 wells are contaminated with levels exceeding the standard of clean water.

In addition to organizing propaganda about the harmful effects of arsenic on health to raise awareness of prevention for people, the Division of Natural Resources and Environment of 4 districts directly guides families to apply the method of sun exposure. water before 24h. After that, it has just been put into use or filtered by sand pool, or using tap water, pumping river water to filter and filter by alum to replace the water source of the drilled well.

An Giang province has advised organizations and individuals to not drill and install new wells, fill 112 drilled wells heavily contaminated with arsenic; and at the same time urgently deploy plans to build mini water supply stations.

A study by the Institute of Hygiene and Public Health (Ministry of Health) said that there are many groundwater wells in 4 provinces of Mekong Delta with arsenic in very high concentrations.In An Giang, after taking 2,966 research samples from drilled wells, 40% of wells were infected with arsenic below 50ppb, 16% were infected over 50ppb.

Most test samples for arsenic contamination are concentrated in 4 districts of An Phu, Tan Chau, Phu Tan and Cho Moi.

In Long An, out of 4,876 samples of groundwater survey, 56% of samples were contaminated with arsenic.

In Dong Thap, the situation was alarming, as more than 67% of the sample of 2,960 groundwater samples surveyed detected arsenic. In particular, Thanh Binh district has a high rate of arsenic infection with 85% of samples having a content of over 50ppb. More than 51% of the samples from more than 3,000 samples were found to have been contaminated with arsenic in Kien Giang.

Arsenic in water has no odor, so water users may not know the water is contaminated with arsenic. This toxin can cause many diseases for water users, including cancer. According to the World Health Organization, the amount of arsenic (arsenic) in water below 10 ppb is considered safe for users.

(According to the website of Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and newspapers)