The Danang City Inspection team has just announced a series of wrongdoings in the planning and operations of two steel plants, the Dana-Italy and Dana-Australia in the area.
The Danang City Inspection team announces wrongdoings in the planning and operations of the Dana-Italy and Dana-Australia steel plants on October 7
According to a report announced on Sunday by the inspectors, the licensing of the two plants in 2008 at the Thanh Vinh Industrial Zone did not comply with the Danang People's Committee's policy which does not allow building steel calcining furnaces inside industrial zones; and the plant locations also failed to meet the regulations on the 500 metre minimum distance between processing and residential areas.
Annual production outputs are tens of thousand tonnes higher than permitted. Between 2008 and 2015, new machinery was installed which changed the production capacity but the company did not report the upgrading to local authorities.
The Dana-Italy Steel Plant has been violating environment regulations as they changed to a different exhaust treatment system from that previously approved, the report said.
Both plants also failed to plant trees following the approved plan by local authorities.
The inspection team concluded that the Danang's departments of construction, planning and investment, natural resources and environment and leaders of the people's committee during the 2009-2014 period should be held responsible for the two plants' wrongdoings.
The Dana-Italy and Dana-Australia plants temporarily suspended production on February 28 following complaints from local people about their threat to the environment.
According to local people, the two plants seriously polluted the environment for the past 10 years with their wastewater. The problems had been reported to leaders of the city who pledged to move 50% of the households to other places by the end of 2017.
"Relocating the plants and the households will both face lots of challenges due to our lack of land," Minh said. "Meanwhile, closing the plants means that we have to pay huge amounts of compensation."
On March 26, Danang authorities allowed the two polluting steel firms to resume operation, despite opposition from local people.
At a meeting with local people in Hoa Vang District following the decision, the Danang People's Committee announced that they gave permission to the two plants to help them "process the materials in stock" in six months before relocating.
Leave your comment on this story