On January 12, Quang Tri Provincial People's Committee confirmed that from January 5, 2026, the locality will temporarily suspend the consideration of new proposals and extend dredging combined with mineral recovery in irrigation reservoirs in the area.
According to the Department of Agriculture and Environment of Quang Tri province, Quang Tri province has 26 irrigation lakes that are being licensed to carry out dredging and sedimentation of reservoirs to increase capacity, combined with product recovery after dredging.
In which, the old Quang Binh area has 2 lakes, the old Quang Tri has 24 lakes. The total dredged volume approved is more than 16.47 million m3, but the volume already implemented has only reached about 2.41 million m3.
After the merger of the province, the coordination, order, and procedures for dredging irrigation reservoirs combined with salvage as filling materials have given rise to some differences between the two old localities. In addition, many legal regulations directly related to irrigation, dam safety, reservoirs and mineral salvage activities are in the process of being reviewed, amended, and supplemented.
Accordingly, the Central Government is drafting amendments and supplements to the Law on Geology and Minerals; the Law amending and supplementing a number of articles of 15 laws in the field of agriculture and environment, including the Law on Water Resources and the Law on Irrigation; and at the same time amending and supplementing Decree 114/2018/ND-CP on dam and reservoir safety. These changes are assessed to directly impact the legal basis of dredging irrigation reservoirs combined with mineral recovery activities.
In the period from October 2025 to December 2025, the Office of the People's Committee of Quang Tri province has issued many documents related to resolving requests from units requesting dredging to increase water storage capacity at irrigation lakes. Faced with this reality, the Department of Agriculture and Environment has proposed to the Provincial People's Committee to allow extension of the advisory time, waiting for new legal regulations to be officially promulgated to be implemented in accordance with regulations.
Based on this proposal, the People's Committee of Quang Tri province has agreed on the policy of reviewing all dredging activities of irrigation reservoirs in the area. The Provincial People's Committee assigned the Department of Agriculture and Environment to base on the requirements to ensure dam and reservoir safety and the need to store water for production and daily life to advise and decide on dredging in accordance with legal regulations. Notably, dredging is only considered based on the requirements of management, exploitation, sustainable use of water resources and ensuring project safety, not based on the need to maximize and exploit products after dredging of enterprises.
