DaNang (VNA)🔯 – Although locals in the central city of Da Nang are nowhaving water supply in a rotary fashion, they still face the risk of a relapseof water shortage as the salinity in input water for Cau Do waterwork – one ofthe major water plants of the city – has increased sharply.

TheDa Nang Water Supply Company (Dawaco) on August 26 proposed the building ofdams to prevent salinity and store fresh water in Cau Do River’s lowerstream asan urgent responding measure.

DawacoGeneral Director Ho Huong said that the company has prepared three stores withabout 30,000 cu.m of fresh water in case the Cau Do River suffers severesalinity.

However,the reserve will meet the demand of the city for only several hours as Da Nangneeds over 300,000 cu.m per day, said Huong.

Accordingto Dawaco’s statistics, at 16:00 of August 26, average salinity rate of inputwater for Cau Do water plant was 1,463mg per litre. As the rate exceeds 1,000mg/l,Dawaco stopped taking the water in Cau Do River and becomes dependent on AnTrach pumping station which has a capacity of only 210,000cu.m per day.

According to Chau Tran Vinh, deputy head of theDepartment of Water Resources Management under the Ministry of NaturalResources and Environment, the central region has suffered heat waves sinceApril. Many places reportedly had record high temperatures (some localities hadtemperatures of over 40 degrees Celsius).

As a result, the flow in the basins is 35-60 percentlower than the average amount of many previous years. In the face of prolongedhot weather, reservoirs are forced to increase the amount of water used forelectricity generation to ensure power supply to the national grid. This causesthe water level in the reservoirs to drop, with several falling below the deadstorage.

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmenthas ordered localities to actively store water, efficiently use water and makeplans to regulate water for the downstream areas of river basins. The ministryhas also directed operators of hydroelectric reservoirs to closely work withlocal administrations to ensure water supply for the downstream areas until theend of the dry season in localities of Nghe An, Quang Nam, Da Nang, Gia Lai andPhu Yen. The ministry requires some reservoirs to prepare for providing waterfor local residents if severe drought occurs.

𒀰 Vinh said that to ensure water supply for thelowland areas in this year’s dry season, the ministry has urged the People’sCommittees of localities to ask sectors and relevant agencies to store enoughwater. For the river basin of Vu Gia – Thu Bon, the ministry told the Dawaco to properly regulate water and fully exploitwater from An Trach dam, especially when water in the Cau Do River sufferssalinity, in order to ensure water supply for residents of Da Nang city.

Moreover, the ministry required agencies toclosely monitor the process of inter-reservoir operation in the central region.They had to carefully calculate and balance the amount of water to reasonablydischarge in reservoirs of river basins of Ca, Ba, Tra Khuc, especially Vu Gia–Thu Bon river basin which often suffers drought and salinity intrusion. Additionally, the department also approved aproject of the People’s Committee of Da Nang to use water in localhydroelectric reservoirs to supply local residents in the dry season. Recently, the People’s Committee of Da Nang has decided to approvea project on building works to improve water environment in the east of Son Tradistrict at a total cost of over 1.4 trillion VND (60.8 million USD) betweennow and 2020. Accordingly, it will build a system of sewers to collectwastewater and part of rainwater, upgrade Son Tra wastewater treatment station(the second stage) with a total daily capacity of 40,000 cu.m during the dryseason, and 100,000 cu.m during rainy season. The city will also build a sewer to transfer wastewater andrainwater from Hoang Sa street to Son Tra wastewater treatment station, amongothers. The committee assigned the management board for transportationworks to carry out the project effectively with ensured quality.-VNA