Socialization of pipeline investment: Solution for Anh Son Town?

(Baonghean) - Boiled tap water used to make green tea does not yield water, has scum, tap water left for a long time has sediment... is a common situation in Anh Son town. Therefore, many households in Anh Son town are afraid to use tap water from the district water supply station. This phenomenon reflects the problem of clean water quality of the water supply station.

This concern was explained by Mr. Nguyen Nguyen Dong - Head of Anh Son Water Supply Station: "The raw water source supplied to the station is underground water exploited from a depth of 120m, then processed according to the process of soaking, spraying, filtering, disinfecting with Javel... With that treatment process, domestic water meets the standards prescribed by the Ministry of Health and the Center for Preventive Medicine has also tested the quality. However, because this land has a lot of limestone, the raw water source is drilled deep underground, so the water has hardness, however, this hardness is allowed to be less than 300, the test result at Anh Son is 200".

Water supply operation at Anh Son Water Supply Station.

Despite the clean water supplier's assertion that the water meets standards, people still use water in the traditional way, such as well water, and build rainwater tanks (especially for brewing green tea and drinking water). Ms. Huyen Hai's family in block 4a said: Because in some areas of the town, digging wells or drilling wells does not find water, or the water is polluted and cannot be used, so the choice is to brew green tea by using rainwater, which is good to drink; and for bathing, washing, etc., they use tap water from Anh Son Water Supply Station.

Anh Son Water Supply Station was built in 2001 with European clean water production technology and equipment (from the Asian Development Bank - ADB). After coming into operation, the people of Anh Son Town reported that the domestic water for cooking and drinking had scum, but it could not be resolved, so Anh Son Water Supply Station with a capacity of 600 m3/day did not operate at full capacity and encountered many difficulties in developing water users. Nghe An Water Supply One Member Co., Ltd. (the managing unit) and Anh Son district also had a plan to convert raw water sources from underground water to exploit Lam River surface water. However, converting raw water sources requires large investment capital, and businesses and localities do not have investment sources.

Currently, Anh Son Water Supply Station has 751 customers in the town and Thanh Son commune (34 households), Phuc Son (13 households) using tap water, with this small number of customers showing that the development of households using water is very difficult. Mr. Nguyen Van Anh, Vice Chairman of Anh Son Town People's Committee said: "There are currently 1,419 households in the town, but the rate of using tap water is less than 50% of the households. In addition to people's concerns about the hardness of the water, another reason leading to the difficulty in developing customers is the lack of water supply pipeline system, in the blocks in the compacted land area not far from the center where the water pipeline has not reached and these areas are in great need of domestic water, especially in the summer".

Developing pipelines is currently a very difficult problem for Anh Son Water Supply Station. Currently, the total length of the station's pipelines is more than 13.5 km (of which the first-level pipeline is 7.6 km long, the second-level pipeline is 1.3 km and the third-level pipeline is 5 km). From the beginning of 2015 until now, in Anh Son Town, only 700m of third-level pipeline has been developed and the capital has been invested by Khai Hoan Garment Company to serve the business's operations, while the development of water supply pipelines in residential areas has not been implemented. Ms. Nguyen Thi Loan in Block 7 reflected: "Because we live near the limestone cliff, we have a lot of difficulty with domestic water, we really want to use water from Anh Son Water Supply Station but still cannot get water".

It is known that recently, 40 households in the fishing village on Lam River (in Block 1) also submitted a request to use the station's water and wanted to supply water to these households, requiring a large capital source to open a 1km long 63mm pipeline, but mobilizing capital from poor households, or the water station's budget, were both very difficult, so the wishes of the fishing village households could not be realized.

In Anh Son Town, there are currently many blocks facing difficulties in domestic water supply, because of digging wells, drilling wells without water, or having unusable water, so they really need to use tap water from Anh Son Water Supply Station. However, they require clean water that meets standards. The demand for tap water is very large and the water supply station has enough capacity to serve. To solve this problem, in fact, the socialization and attraction of investment resources to develop the water supply pipeline network is currently being well implemented by many localities in our province, so Anh Son Town can learn and apply.

Hoang Vinh