According to information from the Management Board of the Technical Infrastructure Project around West Lake, in the third quarter of 2006, Hanoi inaugurated the wastewater collection and treatment system surrounding West Lake.
“We are striving to expedite the progress to complete the installation, testing, and put into operation the waste collection and treatment station at West Lake by the third quarter of 2006,” said engineer Nguyen Dang Hung, Deputy Director of the Management Board.
Located primarily in agricultural land and wetland areas (the entire land area of 46,037 m² belongs to Dam Bay, Nhat Tan Ward, Tay Ho District), the project to construct the wastewater collection and treatment system around West Lake did not face many difficulties in land clearance.
However, this project encountered significant challenges in negotiating the purchase of technology and equipment. According to the signed contract, the design plan for the technology line for the wastewater collection and treatment station was implemented by Vatech Wabag GMBH (Austria) based on feedback from scientists and leading experts from Vietnam.
In fact, to obtain the final opinions from Vietnamese experts, the contractor had to spend a lot of time waiting due to cumbersome and complicated procedures.
The Management Board is currently “racing against time” to conclude the negotiation phase for technology purchase and finalize the procedures for implementing the construction drawing, which includes 10,185 meters of main pipeline, 5,135 meters of secondary pipeline, and 7 pumping stations.
“By the end of December 2005, the Management Board will complete the bidding procedures for construction to implement and finish the construction work by May 2006. It is expected that the project will begin testing and be put into use in July or August 2006,” engineer Hung hopes.
The construction of the wastewater collection and treatment system is an important component of the Technical Infrastructure Project around West Lake, which was approved for additional funding by Hanoi City in 2002. The main purpose of the project is to collect and treat wastewater from the West Lake basin (where wastewater directly affects the quality of West Lake water), preventing wastewater from directly entering the lake to protect, enhance, and exploit the water surface of the lake and the surrounding areas.
The project has a very large investment cost, in addition to compensation and land clearance costs, the remaining substantial amount will be used for constructing the piping system, collecting wastewater to the pumping stations and the centralized treatment station, and the discharge pipeline system from the centralized treatment station, establishing pumping stations to concentrate wastewater toward the centralized treatment station, and constructing a centralized wastewater treatment station with a capacity of 7,500 m³/day and night in the Dam Bay area, etc.
After treatment, the wastewater meets standard A according to Vietnamese standards for industrial wastewater and is discharged into the city’s general drainage system and replenished into West Lake as needed (the replenishment of water into West Lake will only be implemented after the water quality post-treatment research results ensure the ecological balance of West Lake).
