When the site was cleared for two industrial parks – Phu Tai and Long My – in the central province's Qui Nhon City, about 30 per cent of the households had refused to accept the compensation offered, said Nguyen Ngoc Toan, deputy head of Binh Dinh's Economic Zones Management Department.
The Sai Gon Tiep Thi (Sai Gon Marketing) newspaper last Monday cited Toan as saying unfeasible site clearance policies had held back progress in site clearance work at both parks.
Provincial authorities, therefore, decided to postpone site clearance work in some residential areas where they were still negotiating compensation with residents, Toan said.
He said the 30 per cent of households who stayed back should move because pollution in provincial IPs in general and Phu Tai and Long My in particular had become more critical.
Thousands of households live on one side of National Road 1A, facing hundreds of factories on the other side that process wood, stone, agricultural products and building materials, emitting thick smoke and dust into the air everyday.
Worst till, 10 per cent of the agricultural land in the area has been inundated with waste and rubbish discharged by manufacturers in the industrial parks for the last seven years, local officials say.
According to Dang Thuc, a Party cell secretary in Bui Thi Xuan ward, many factories in industrial parks do not have waste treatment systems and discharge all their untreated waste into the public sewer system, seriously choking it.
The 348ha Phu Tai industrial park and 210ha Long My industrial park are located in Bui Thi Xuan and Tran Quang Dieu wards, respectively.
VietNamNet/Viet Nam News