Do Luong: Overcoming weak irrigation works

My Son (Do Luong) is a land of "drought before sun, flooded before rain". Up to now, the local summer-autumn production has been unstable due to floods. In 2010, the whole commune lost 120 hectares of rice due to flooding. Heavy rains and tornadoes in early June 2011 continued to cause flooding and damage to nearly 200 hectares of spring rice that were ripe and green (recovered after the cold spell).

The commune agricultural extension officer took us to visit Me Dam - this is a dam that provides irrigation water for 20 hectares of agricultural land in hamlets 1 and 2, the dam has a water surface area of ​​about 5 hectares. We observed that the dam body had a landslide upstream, the inner bank was broken, due to the flood last year, which significantly affected production and people's lives.

Although the commune immediately mobilized people to contribute to building the upstream embankment and spillway. However, because it was not firmly reinforced, the Me dam is currently in a state of silting up the dam base, with high subsidence, and the risk of dam body landslides is inevitable.

Me Dam (My Son) is at high risk of subsidence.

Comrade Vo Thanh Luc - Chairman of the People's Committee of My Son commune said: The commune has identified the implementation of flood prevention and control this year as focusing on repairing and reinforcing weak dams, canals and lakes from the beginning. The whole commune currently has 12 large and small dams, which were formed quite a long time ago. In recent years, heavy rains have caused many dams to overflow and break.

In 2009, Khe Su dam broke, causing great damage to local agricultural production. Meanwhile, some concrete canal systems such as pumping station canal 1, canals 8,9,10 with a length of nearly 2km running along the hillside have been in use for too long and are therefore unsafe. To proactively respond to this year's storms and floods, the commune has deployed specific plans for each hamlet and household, and mobilized forces to fix weak canals, dams and reservoirs. However, repairing and reinforcing dams and canals permanently, ensuring good water storage and flood drainage capacity is a difficult problem for the locality.

Do Luong district currently has 16 km of Central-managed flood prevention dike, 7 km of Nam - Bac - Dang dike managed by the locality, 13 irrigation works, 53 pumping stations, and 49 dams.

This is an irrigation system serving agricultural production, ensuring safety during the storm and flood season of the district. In the past three years, the system of headworks, drainage culverts, dams, dikes, and spillways has been upgraded with capital from government bonds.

In 2010, the irrigation works damaged by storms and floods in the area were basically repaired with the support of the province and local resources. The restoration and construction of the dike body cross-section and the dike crest elevation actually reached the flood protection level as in 1978 and 1988. Irrigation works across the dike were repaired and maintained.

According to the assessment of the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development of Do Luong district, there has been no major flood for nearly 3 years. Key works such as drainage culverts, large dams, dikes, and spillways in Do Luong district have not yet experienced operational capacity, so the risk of incidents is still pending.

Some projects such as Cau Dau flood drainage culvert (Trang Son), flood drainage system along Dao River from Trang Son to Hoa Son with a length of nearly 7km, are currently in a state of sedimentation, filling the channel, the flood drainage channel is gradually narrowing, the actual flood drainage capacity is poor. In addition, most of the upstream dams and reservoirs are not paved with anti-wave and anti-overflow stones, the capacity to contain water and drain floods is limited, easily causing landslides when storms come. Especially like Da Ban dam (Bai Son), Cho Mai dam (Nam Son), Le Nghia spillway (Minh Son)...

Based on the reality, Do Luong determined the task of PCBL work in 2011 is to focus on protecting the safety of irrigation works, protecting dykes, embankments, culverts and dams, pumping stations. The specific plan is to mobilize localities to focus on repairing dykes, directing the complete completion of dyke construction volumes, dams, and reservoirs, and by June 30 at the latest, complete the reserve soil volume on the two Lam left and Lam right dykes according to the decision of the Provincial People's Committee.

Luong Mai