Huge numbers of fish died in farms and coastal waters in Vietnam, and people believe that the reason for the fish’s death is a discharge from a drainage pipe at the nearby a steel works was poisoning the water. However, the Vietnamese government said there was no evidence that discharge from a new Taiwanese-built steel plant was to blame for the death of the fish.
The local unit of Taiwan’s Formosa Plastics which is building the plant whose first phase began operation in December has denied that, saying all regulations and standards had been respected.
At a news conference to announce the government’s assessment, deputy environment minister Vo Tuan Nhan said that “there were two possible causes of the fish deaths: toxic discharge by human activities on land or at sea, or a phenomenon known as “red tide”, when dangerous algae bloom at an abnormal rate and produce toxins.
“This is a complicated issue that had happened in many places around the world, requiring time to identify causes,” Nhan said. “It is necessary to research the cause systematically, fundamentally and in a fact-based way.”
Suspicions about a link between the fish deaths and the steel plant were exacerbated when Chu Xuan Pham, a Hanoi-based representative of Formosa’s local unit, said in comments reported on Monday that Vietnam had to choose between “catching fish and shrimp and building a modern steel industry.”
Fish and shellfish deaths have now been reported along a stretch of some 200 km (124 miles) on Vietnam’s central coast, in the provinces of Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien-Hue.
“I’ve been doing this job for 19 years but I’ve never seen such a phenomenon,” Ha Tinh clam farmer Nguyen Xuan Phuong told state-run Vietnam Television (VTV). He said it had caused him losses of 200 million dong ($9,000).
Tests of seawater taken from Thua Thien-Hue province showed higher-than-normal levels of ammonium and chromium, Nguyen Huu Quyet, deputy head of the provincial environment department, said on Wednesday in a VTV broadcast.
But deputy minister Nhan said: “There has not yet been detection of environmental parameters exceeding regulated standards.”
Hundreds of people demonstrated in Vietnam on Sunday against the Taiwanese firm they accuse of causing mass fish deaths along the country’s central coast, with some also blaming the government for a sluggish response to a major environmental disaster.
Hundreds gathered in Hanoi holding banners that said: “Formosa destroying the environment is a crime” and “Who poisoned the central region’s waters?”
Others said: “Formosa out of Vietnam!” and took aim at the government for being aloof in what it now describes as one of its worst environmental disasters.
Demonstrations are rare in Vietnam and uniformed and plain-clothes police are usually quick to suppress them. On Sunday they cleared traffic to allow demonstrators to do a lap of a big lake in the heart of Hanoi.
