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The obsession of the “lobster island”

Saturday, March 8, 2014
The lobster hatchery in Cam Binh commune of Cam Ranh Bay in the central sea city of Nha Trang has been endangered by the environment pollution.
The rich also have their sufferings


Located in the southern part of the Cam Ranh Bay, separated from the mainland, Cam Binh Island has been prospering thanks to its lobster farming and tourism development. Cam Binh’s people are called the “rich people” with the high income per capita, which is the dream of the other localities.
However, the rich also have their sufferings. The biggest problem of Cam Binh is the spontaneous waste discharging and improper waste treatment which has caused the environment pollution.
It is the lobster hatchery, which helps Cam Binh’s people get rich, and has made them suffer.
According to the Cam Binh commune People’s Committee, there are some 700 households living on an area of 300 hectares in the locality, where 4,000 cages of lobsters are farmed.
The 4,000 cages alone discharge more than one ton of waste everyday.
According to the Khanh Hoa provincial Tourism Promotion Center, the Binh Ba Island attracts some 1,000 visitors every month. This, plus the increasingly high population of the island, have both led to the increases in the waste volumes.
It is estimated that several tons of garbage is discharged to the environment every day by the thousands of people, lobster farmers and tourists. The volume of waste is so big that the landfill in Cam Binh commune has got overloaded.
According to Nguyen Huu Thong, Deputy Chair of Cam Binh Commune, the waste has been simply dumped manually, while it has not been treated properly with chemicals, therefore, it always gives bad odors.
Local people, who use water from self-dug wells for their daily life, have been living in a fear that the underground water source has got polluted, thus harming people’s health.
“If no reasonable solution is applied to protect the environment, the island would face a serious pollution,” Thong said.
Lobster hatchery in the danger
Cam Binh’s people began farming lobster in cages in early 1980s, when the wild shrimp sources got exhausted. The rich clean water source from Cam Ranh Bay has helped develop the farming and create the richest commune in the bay area.
According to Tran Van Hoa, Chair of Cam Binh Commune People’s Committee, said 50 percent of local people have the annual income of VND200-300 from the lobster hatchery, the highest income level in rural areas of Khanh Hoa province.
However, the lobster hatchery has been endangered by the epidemics. Shrimp have died because of “strange diseases.” During the 2012-2013 crop, diseased shrimp were found in 90 percent of shrimp cages.
According to Thong, 16 self-managed teams have been set up. They are in charge of collecting waste from cages in the sea and have it treated. Some sumps have also been built to treat the waste water from the fish feed processing.
However, local people said the sumps have not helped much, because the waste water from them would run back to the sea in high tides.
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