Despite having 7 clean water supply systems, Duy Vinh Commune in Duy Xuyen District, Quang Nam Province has been suffering from a lack of clean water.
All wells of the commune are contaminated with alum and salinity
Underground water sources in Duy Vinh Commune were dangerously polluted by alum and had very high concentrations of dissolved salts. Thanks to support from charity organisations, the commune invested VND350 million ($18,273) to build the seven clean water supply systems from 1997 to 2000.
However, only five of them have been put into operation which only meets the washing and bathing demand of about 50% of residents. Over 80% of people are short of water for drinking and cooking.
Tran Thi Thu, living in Hamlet 2, Duy Vinh Commune, said that those systems now were used for only washing and bathing. They have to buy drinking water from Thach Ban market for other needs.
Thu added that these clean water systems can only purify water but cannot help to remove alum which is concentrated in the water. Furthermore, the systems were used for a long time without upgrade or proper maintenance so the water pipes have broken. As a result, sand and soil mixes with water.
Thu’s family has since stopped taking water from these sources. They pump water from the well and bought an alum filtering machine to purify the water. However, they can use this water for bathing and washing only. They have to buy clean water from the neighbouring commune for cooking and drinking.
Nguyen Thi Ngu, also living at Hamlet 2, complained that her family spent VND3,000 ($0.15) per day or VND45,000-50,000 ($2.34-2.61) per month buying water for drinking and cooking.
In addition, her family has to pay VND20,000 ($1.04) on average to buy clean water for washing and bathing. However, this clean water is just more purified than natural water but alum and salinity are not filtered.
Nguyen Van Hung from Hamlet 2 shared, “Earlier, my family had to use 2 water filtration pools to reduce alum content but I don’t know why the water now is affected so much by alum that I can not use it for cooking, just for washing and bathing.”
Nguyen Sau, Vice Chairman of the Commune People’s Committee, said that all water of Duy Vinh Commune is severely affected by alum. This has caused difficulties in not only agriculture production, but also in daily activities of peoples lives. If the 7 clean water systems can work effectively, they can provide enough water for the daily activities of nearly 2,400 families.
According to Sau, the commune assigned 7 water enterprises to manage the water cleaning systems independently. However, after being exploited for sometime, they became degraded due to poor quality. Consequently, there are fewer and fewer people coming to buy water from them and the 7 enterprises have lost profits.
Recently, the People’s Committee of Quang Nam Province started constructing a clean water supply project in Duy Nghia Commune which is worth VND3 billion ($156,629). When it is put into operation, it will provide water to about 350 families in Dong Binh Hamlet. However, the question remains to be answered when over 2,000 families of Duy Vinh Commune will have enough clean water.
Many people have to go to a neighbouring commune to buy water for drinking and cooking
“Clean water” contains an unacceptable amount of alum and salinity
