Need to repair water pipes for Pieng Cu

(Baonghean) -In October 2010, the people of Nong Danh and Pieng Pung villages in the Hua Na Hydropower Reservoir area left their hometowns to move to a new place, giving up their land for the project. Their new place of residence is Pieng Cu 1 and Pieng Cu 2 villages in Tien Phong commune (Que Phong district). Up to now, the lives of 137 households are stabilizing. Many difficulties in the new place are being overcome, but there are difficulties beyond the people's capacity, forcing them to file petitions with the authorities, including domestic water.

We returned to Pieng Cu on a day at the end of the dry season, the trees here were almost dry. In the sweltering heat of the changing seasons, we could see the hardships of the people when they lacked water for daily activities. Pieng Cu 2 Kindergarten was quiet even though it was not Sunday. We asked and found out that due to the lack of water for daily activities, the school had to let the children take a day off. In the corner of the school yard, workers were busy digging in the bottom of a well, and baskets of dry soil were pulled up. A well digger said: This well was dug by a resettlement project to overcome the situation when the natural water source was not enough. The depth of the well was about 10m before. Because it was dug in the rainy season, there was a lot of water when digging, but in the dry season the well dried up. To have water, we had to dig at least 2m more to ensure enough water for the school.

Pieng Cu 2 villagers renovated wells to find water sources.

Leaving the kindergarten, we went to the house of the village chief of Pieng Cu 2, Mr. Luong Van Hoi. The village chief's yard also has a well, the well's bottom has been dug by the investor for more than half a meter, the amount of water flowing out a day is about a few hundred liters, if one house fills the 500 liter tank, the other houses will have no water to use. According to Mr. Hoi, the biggest difficulty of the people here is the lack of water for daily use. About 3 months after moving in, the self-flowing water system was operating so the people had enough water for daily use. After the incident of the pipeline breaking, the self-flowing water source was lost, to ensure daily use for the people, in addition to the self-flowing water system, the investor also dug wells. Pieng Cu 2 village has 17 wells, most of which have now dried up, leaving the people without water for daily use.

Mr. Lu Van Thu said that his family has 4 members, and for a long time he had to carry water from a stream hundreds of meters away from his house, and only prioritized for eating and drinking, while bathing had to go to the stream, and the water source in the stream was also seriously polluted, partly because the livestock pens were located along the stream, the whole village only had 90 toilets, and those that did not have them often used the stream bank as a place to defecate, causing the water source to be polluted. The situation of using unsanitary water sources caused a number of diseases such as sore eyes and stomachaches. People hope that the self-flowing water project will be fixed soon so that they can have hygienic water for daily use.

According to Mr. Hoi, the village moved to the new place nearly 3 years ago, but after only 3 months, there was no water anymore. Since then, the investor has been asked many times to fix the problem, but it has not been effective. The people have petitioned the commune, district and relevant agencies to solve the water problem so that people can live more comfortably.

Hua Na Hydropower Plant has been connected to the grid, and every day the investor earns billions of dong from selling electricity. The investor needs to set aside only a very small portion of that revenue to repair and renovate water pipes and overcome the water shortage in Pieng Cu.

Faced with this situation, the Hua Na Hydropower Project Management Board needs to put the interests of people in resettlement areas alongside its own interests.

Article and photos: Anh Tuan