People have to breathe toxic gas!

We went to the area of ​​Hung Nguyen Shrimp Shell Processing Factory (Kinh Tac Hamlet, Ham Rong Commune, Nam Can District, Ca Mau Province). The smell was unbearable, just sitting for a few minutes at Mr. Nguyen Van Sau's house, our nose was spicy.

Mr. Six urged: 'Four years have to breathe toxic smoke. My whole family now has all the rhinitis. I was so scared, I had to evacuate my two grandchildren to Phu Tan's side to live temporarily on her grandmother's house . '

Mr. Pham Van Dat complained of shrimp death, heavy losses
(Photo: TTO)

Mr. Sau led us to go on a long journey with Mr. Do. Everywhere I heard, my relatives complained, annoyed about smoke and dust. Mr. Ha Anh Dung heard that Hung Nguyen Factory shook his head: 'I left the rice, smelled the smell that I wanted to vomit and ate nothing. Extremely uncomfortable. Add three flies, like the rice husk . '.

The story of smoke from acid by shrimp processing factory has really become an obsession for people here. In the area of 'coverage' of more than 1km of smoke from the factory, hundreds of people have rhinitis, dozens of families with children have to evacuate because of fear of cancer.

Residents of Ham Rong and Dat Moi and Nam Can communes live mainly on shrimp farming, but according to villagers, from the day the factory operates, people have lost their crops continuously. Pham Van Dat said: 'After the factory has been operating for more than a month, my shrimp started to die, the money for shrimp breeding was forever. I have owed the bank 200 million dong so far. I heard that the bankers transferred my debt records through the district court. Maybe I have to go to court tomorrow. '

Mr. Ha Anh Dung, uncle Huynh Van Keep, Chau Van Son, Pham Van Sau, Truong Van Ho . all have the same plight: white shrimp since the last four years, since the factory started. People have asked to sell land for only 1.5 taels of gold / work, previously the amount of gold / work to go elsewhere to do business.

Not only dead shrimp but also crabs, fish also died. Too horrified, the summer children went to sue. However, Pham Van Dat said that after twice sending a complaint letter to the district that was not answered, he went to the province to report the situation, but still did not lose.

Mr. Tran Quoc Viet - the direct manager of Hung Nguyen shrimp shell factory - took us to visit the property. Raw material of shrimp shells is piled high. The air in the material handling area is condensed by acid smoke and the strong odor of the shell head for the maggots eat all the meat for a long time.

Most impressive is probably the hydrochloric acid tanks (HCl). There are seven, eight, 3 - 4m high, more than 1m in diameter. Mr. Tran Quoc Viet said that there are all 16 reservoirs treating shrimp head chemicals. Each lake has a volume of about 2.6 m ³ , operating continuously. Each lake has a waste water discharge hole, connected to the common discharge pipe - 20cm diameter - discharged straight into the river.

According to the technical process presented by Mr. Viet, each unit of shrimp shells, for clean treatment, needs at least two units of chemical water (each plant has a hazardous waste amount of at least 300m ³ ). Thus, for the past four years, the arterial river for people to get shrimp farming has had to 'drink' hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of toxic acidic wastewater.

Mr. Viet said he invested 600 million dong to build and install a waste water treatment system, with a capacity of 300m ³ / day and night, is expected to be completed and put into use by the end of June 2006. However, he acknowledged that there has been no way to deal with smoke because acid affects the shrimp shell material during chemical treatment.

Thus, even if Hung Nguyen put the wastewater treatment system into operation, hundreds of households in Ham Rong and Dat Moi communes, Nam Can district still have to continue to breathe acid gas with a denser concentration.

According to Ca Mau Department of Natural Resources and Environment, at present, shrimp-shell factories are releasing at least 500m3 of waste water / day and night in Ca Mau. Engineer Ngo Chi Hung said that the two chemicals are concentrated in the wastewater that is HCl and Naoh - extremely toxic.

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