Who’s to blame for Vietnam’s dead fish crisis?

Ho Binh Minh and Mai Nguyen/Reuters

Vietnam is facing an environmental crisis as massive amounts of fish have been killed at aquatic farms and in waters off the country’s central provinces. Vietnamese state media has tied the deaths to alleged toxic discharges coming from a steel complex built by Taiwan’s Formosa Plastics.

A villager shows dead sea fish he collected on a beach in Phu Loc district, in the central province of Thua Thien Hue. Photograph: STR/AFP/Getty Images

The Taiwan’s company local unit Hung Nghiep Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Corp, however, said in a statement this week via its parent company that there is no evidence that wastewater from its steel plant was responsible for the fish deaths.

Fish raised in farms near Vung Ang port in Ha Tinh province, about 250 miles south of Hanoi, began dying on April 6, with more dead fish subsequently washing up on nearby beaches.

The fish deaths in Ha Tinh and now other provinces have raised concerns about food security and domestic seafood markets have been deserted. There are also worries that the fish kill could threaten Vietnam’s $7 billion in annual seafood exports.

Fish and shellfish deaths have now also been reported in the provinces of Quang Binh, Quang Tri and Thua Thien-Hue along a stretch of some 124 miles on Vietnam’s central coast.

Several media reports have said a drainage pipe operated by Formosa’s Vietnam unit in Ha Tinh province is behind the water pollution that has killed the fish.

The wastewater discharged by Formosa Ha Tinh has undergone proper treatment and meets with Vietnam’s standards, the local company’s director of environmental hygiene and safety, Khau Nhan Kiet, said at Tuesday’s news conference.

Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, who took office early this month, has ordered a thorough inspection of the fish deaths, the government said on Tuesday without naming any suspects. The findings are expected out later this week.

To read more, click here: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-vietnam-formosa-plastics-environment-idUSKCN0XO18L