Local industrial parks had mainly been using water from underground or the river rather than from the reservoir, Pham Minh Dao, director of Dong Nai Department of Agriculture and Rural Development said.

The Cau Moi Reservoir project in Dong Nai Province was designed to supply around 85,000 cubic meters of water a day to locals and irrigate more than 1,800 hectares of farmland, but is only supplying one company

“The project has not been as effective as expected,” Dao said of the reservoir that was invested by his department.

The VND330 billion (US$18.93 million) Cau Moi Reservoir project in the province’s Long Thanh District, which was constructed between 2004 and 2007, was designed to supply around 85,000 cubic meters a day to industrial parks in Long Thanh and Nhon Trach districts and irrigate more than 1,800 hectares of farmland near National Road No. 51.

No irrigation canals

Nguyen Van Thao, director of the department’s agricultural projects management, said the irrigation canal systems still haven’t been constructed.

“The project was designed with canal systems to carry water to Suoi Ca and Long An dams for irrigation,” he said. “However, the construction of the canals was halted because there were some zoning land use changes in the area.”

He said the planned system included a 6.6 km main canal and 43.5 km of secondary canals.

Deputy director of Dong Nai Department of Planning and Investment, Nguyen Luc Hoa, said plans for canal construction couldn’t be finalized because the Construction Department hadn’t announced the zoning of the area.

Tran Dinh Minh, head of the department’s irrigation branch, said the farming area that the reservoir was initially intended to serve had shrunk to 1,480 hectares from 1,810 hectares since construction started in 2004 until last July.

Fraction of capacity used

The multimillion dollar reservoir has only supplied water to one firm since it opened.

Minh said three companies had registered to use water from the reservoir with a total demand of 106,000 cubic meters a day, including Formosa Company, MSG maker, Vedan and Tan Mai Paper JSC, but only Vedan was using the water – about 10,000 cubic meters a day.

An official from Tan Mai Paper JSC said they were not sure when they’d start operating the factory, while Formosa Company also said they expected to use water from Cau Moi Reservoir in 2011.

Based on 1992 design The project’s design had been prepared in 1992 based on farming land statistics that year, the project’s consultant, Dong Nai Construction Consultant Company, said at a meeting Monday with the province’s Department of Agriculture and Rural Development and relative agencies.

The project was then delayed until 2004, when the construction started without any modification in design, the representative said adding that there had been little change to the farming area during the delay.

A local expert had said before it was built that it was unnecessary to construct the Cau Moi Reservoir because Long An Dam in Long Thanh District could supply more than enough water to farms and industry if the dam level was raised by only five centimeters, the Sai Gon Tiep Thi (Saigon Marketing) newspaper reported Monday.

The paper also quoted Tran Xuan Trung, head of Long Thanh Irrigation Station, saying that they had to let water out of the Cau Moi reservoir continuously since last July.