On October 19, the Department of Natural Resources and Environment of Quang Tri province confirmed that there are currently 28 locations where pesticides are stored in Quang Tri province. To safely handle these 28 locations, more than 124 billion VND is needed.
The funding for the treatment of pollution at pesticide residue sites under public interest is largely supported by the central budget. However, since 2019, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment has stopped funding the pollution treatment program.
After that, the Office of the Government issued a document requesting the local authorities to allocate resources and local budgets to handle pollution at pesticide residue sites. However, local budgets are limited, so the projects cannot be implemented.
The Department of Natural Resources and Environment of Quang Tri province proposed to terminate the project for 28 pollution points with residual environmental protection chemicals that had proposed a project with funding from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, but had not yet been allocated funding. From there, it recommended that the People's Committee of Quang Tri province assign the Department of Natural Resources and Environment to conduct an assessment and propose a treatment plan in accordance with the criteria under the Law on Environmental Protection 2020.
It is known that in order to serve the needs of agricultural production, many types of pesticides were previously mass-produced to supply to cooperatives in Quang Tri province. Later, many types were banned from use because they caused many harmful effects to people and the environment, but these pesticides were kept in cooperative warehouses and were not collected or processed.
Statistics show that the entire Quang Tri province has 52 locations contaminated with expired pesticides that are banned from use. After the treatment project was launched, Quang Tri province has implemented it, but there are still 28 locations that have not been treated.
