In 2021 and 2022, functional departments of the province and districts have inspected and detected 129 livestock establishments violating environmental protection. It is necessary to strengthen inspection and supervision of livestock production to limit the risk of environmental pollution and create a livable space for society.
A cow farm in Cam My District
There were many violations of the livestock environment
According to the statistics of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment, there were 129 livestock establishments violating environmental protection in the last 2 years. In which, the most common was discharging untreated or substandard wastewater into the environment, not investing in environmental protection items according to the license ...
Deputy Director of the Department of Natural Resources and Environment Tran Trong Toan said that: most large livestock production facilities had environmental permits (district level scale) or environmental impact assessment reports (province level scale); invested in wastewater treatment systems according to regulations, the treated wastewater could be recycled and cleaned to water plants or discharged into the environment; waste was collected, gathered in storage houses, composted and sold to households or fertilizer production facilities.
Medium-sized livestock establishments have invested in biogas cellars, settling ponds, and reservoirs to treat wastewater and manure. Particularly, small and odd breeding establishments have almost no effective solutions for water and waste treatment, only preliminary settling and combining with fish farming.
In addition to the violation of waste treatment and lack of environmental protection items, many livestock production facilities "forget" the registration of permits/reports on environmental impact assessment according to regulations.
Long Thanh district has 54 livestock production facilities in operation, but only 8 have environmental permits, 46 establishments have not yet had environmental procedures. According to Long Thanh district, these facilities have existed for a long time and from farmers to farms so meeting environmental criteria is still limited. In 2021, the People's Committee of Long Thanh district has stipulated the areas have not allowed for breeding, moving the establishments out of the areas not allowed for breeding but it has not been implemented so far due to the low support level for relocation, the land fund for planning of the areas allowed for breeding is only about 78 hectares, not enough for establishments to operate.
Chairman of the Vietnam Fatherland Front Committee in the province Cao Van Quang said that: the bad smell and wastewater from livestock production, especially household-scale pigs keeping in residential areas are pressing problems of many voters. There were cases voters complained, authorities took action but then it still recurred. This shows that the sanctioning of administrative violations have not been drastic.
According to Chairman of the Dong Nai Livestock Association Nguyen Tri Cong, environmental protection is a mandatory requirement for livestock establishments to keep the environment green and clean. However, the problem of the industry today is too many outsourcings for companies. Instead of being responsible for closely coordinating and implementing regulations on environmental protection, these enterprises leave the whole responsibility to the farmers.
A pig farm at Tan Binh commune, Vinh Cuu district
Proper planning and meeting the environment
At a recent meeting with the Provincial People's Committee, Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee Nguyen Hong Linh emphasized that livestock breeding must be put at the right places; livestock productions could not be interspersed in residential areas, urban areas, near rivers and lakes because it would cause bad odors and threaten to pollute the living water of the whole community. In case any facilities were not in accordance with the planning, they must definitely be relocated according to the schedule. This required the determination of the whole political system and the high consensus of the people.
Regarding the environment, livestock establishments must have permits or environmental impact assessment reports, these permits must be substantive. The province and districts must strengthen inspection and supervision to ensure that facility owners fully comply with the committed solutions. Strictly and completely handled violations, limited new arising. Strengthen instructions for establishment owners to apply biosecurity measures to reduce disease risks and limit environmental pollution.
Chairman of the Provincial People's Council Thai Bao said that it was time to re-evaluate the scale, proportion of contributions and risks of the livestock industry. On that basis, the industry development orientation was suitable to the province's socio-economic conditions.
In order to promptly correct and completely handle the environmental pollution in livestock breeding, the Provincial People's Committee had directed the departments, branches and localities to review the permitted areas, the compliance with the standards and regulations according to the environmental permits. Recently, the province issued Decision No. 296/QD-UBND approving the list of more than 3,000 livestock production establishments that had to be relocated out of the areas not allowed for livestock breeding.
Along with that, the Provincial People's Committee directed that from now until the end of June 2023, the Department of Natural Resources and Environment and localities must conduct a general inspection of all livestock farms in the area, organize the review and evaluation of the results, on that basis propose the next solutions.
