Police in the central province of Ha Tinh has decided to prosecute the illegal dumping of toxic waste of Hung Hiep Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Limited Company in the area.
The criminal prosecution was announced on August 2 after the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MoNRE) released the hazard testing results which said the waste mud illegally dumped in Ky Anh town is a mixture of industrial and hazardous waste.
Deputy director of Ha Tinh Police, Bui Dinh Quang, said that they will investigate to clarify the responsibility of both the waste's owner, Formosa, and the dumper, Ky Anh urban environment management and construction consultation joint stock company.
Shortly after the dumping was detected in mid-July, the provincial People’s Committee and the MoNRE inspected the landfills at Con Tro Hill in Ky Trinh ward of Ky Anh town, Xanh (Green) Park, and the Ky Tan dumping ground.
Test results showed that some of the waste mud samples here contained cyanide levels exceeding the permissible level of hazardous waste.
According to the MoNRE, Hung Hiep Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Limited Company’s violations include not having measured and sorted the toxic waste volume that must be registered and managed as pursuant to Clause 5 of Article 21 of the Government’s Decree 179/2013/ND-CP. The firm, which is also responsible for the mass fish deaths along the central coast, also handed over hazardous waste to organisations and persons that had not been licensed to treat toxic waste over 5 tonnes, as stipulated in Point h of Clause 7 under Article 21 of the decree.
Ky Anh urban environment management and construction consultation joint stock company had been forced to collect all the illegally-dumped waste, amounting to 390.72 tonnes, and sent to Ha Tinh Industrial Waste Processing Co. Ltd.
