Da Nang airport soil project set for April

The first stage of efforts to treat dioxin contaminated soil with In-Pile Thermal Desorption (IPTD or thermal remediation) at the Da Nang Airport Project will kick off next month.

Head of the Military Science Office of Air Force-Air Defence Command, Colonel Do Duy Kien made the announcement yesterday at a community outreach session on environmental remediation efforts at the site.


"Contractors have filled up 45,000 cubic metres of dioxin-contaminated soil in the containment and all equipment is ready for the treatment of contaminated soil and sediment with thermal remediation," Kien said.

The session, which was attended by more than 80 community representatives and the city's authorities, aims to share information with community representatives about progress on the Environmental Remediation of Dioxin Contamination at the Airport.

"The Air Force-Air Defence also completed clearing unexploded ordnances (UXOs) on an area of 31.8ha as well as setting up a power sub-station with 12,800KVA," Kien added.

"As proposed by USAID, the command will clear 5.7ha of the entire area of Sen Lake again in April and May. The second phase of excavation of dioxin contaminated soil at the airport will continue from 2014 and 2015," Kien said.

The contaminated soil and sediment will be heated by 1,254 heating wells to a temperature of 335 degrees Celsius over four months, with approximately 95 per cent of the dioxin estimated to be destroyed within the structure.

Vice chairman of the city's People's Committee Nguyen Ngoc Tuan said the project would be the first of six other dioxin "hot pots" in Viet Nam.

USAID Viet Nam Mission Director, Joakim Parker said:"The project remains on schedule and on target to complete the clean up in 2016. This owes a great deal to the excellent co-operation among USAID and our Vietnamese government partners, especially Viet Nam's Ministry of National Defence, its Air Defence-Air Force command and Da Nang People's Committee," he said.

According to a representative from the Viet Nam-Russia tropical centre, environmental monitoring systems have been put in place to prevent the offsite migration of contaminants including storm water run-off; water generated during remediation as well as measurements of baseline dioxin.

The five-year project draws on a total fund of US$84 million, of which VND35 billion ($1.6 million) is from the Vietnamese Government, aims to clean an estimated 73,000 cubic metres of contaminated soil at the airport.

The treated soil will be later removed from the containment structure and tested for traces of contaminants before being used as a filling material at the site.

The Da Nang Airport is referred to as a dioxin "hot spot", together with several sites in other provinces such as Bien Hoa in Dong Nai, due to the high levels of dioxin in the soil.