Hanoi rejects Austrian scheme to clean up city's landmark West lake
HANOI - Vietnam's ruling communist party has rejected a 32 million dollar Austrian-funded project to clean up the
waters of the capital's landmark West Lake following a barrage of criticism in the official media.
The party's Hanoi branch announced its decision on Friday, the Ho Chi Minh City daily Thanh Nien (Youth)
said without elaborating on the reasons given.
The project, agreed with West Lake district authorities, would have involved taking treated water from the Red
River, which runs through the capital and pumping it through the lake in a cleansing circuit.
"The main cause of the serious pollution of water in the West Lake now is the waste poured into the lake,
which has led to serious impacts on people's health and the aquatic life in the lake," district officials told the
Vietnam Investment Review earlier this month.
But the scheme ran counter to another 37.2 million dollar project already approved by Prime Minister Phan
Van Khai last December which is aimed at cleaning up household and industrial waste before it enters the lake.
The Vietnamese project entails the construction of treatment plants at the lake's southern and northeastern ends
to handle the waste from the 60,000 people who live on its shores and the diversion of other waste into a
nearby canal.
But it is only 20 percent funded by the government and would require the sale of land use rights around the lake
to finance the rest.
Nonetheless the rival Austrian project ran into "serious misgivings" from the planning investment ministry, the
Vietnam Environment and Water Supply Consultant Company and the Hanoi Civil Engineering University, even
though it is fully funded with soft loans, the Vietnam Investment Review said.
"The (Austrian-funded) plan has sparked loud calls of protest from concerned scientists, environmentalists and
historians who are horrified at the idea of a conceptually unsound experiment being conducted on this national
treasure," the paper charged.
"They say the plan is ill-conceived and scientifically groundless."
Officials at the Austrian embassy were not immediately available for comment on the criticisms.
The largest of around 20 lakes which dot the capital and are the pride of Hanoians, the 526 hectare (1,300
acre) West Lake shelters some of the capital's plushest residential neighbourhoods on its shores.
Home to more than 450 species of animals and 59 species of birds, it is seen as a major environmental and
leisure amenity.
Agence France Presse - June 30, 2001.
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