Unlike most golf courses, Saigon’s Tan Son Nhat Golf Course is located in the heart of a densely populated urban area where it poses a serious environmental threat to those living nearby. Local residents and experts have warned that the many chemicals used to keep the course in pristine shape are making their way into the local water supply and are causing “serious pollution to a large area nearby.”
Related Articles:
- Medical Musings: Would You Like A Side Of Arsenic With That Rice?
- 22 Photos That Reveal How Bad Pollution Has Become In China
- Report: Vietnam in Top 10 for Worst Air Pollution
The US$300 million, 157.29-hectare golf course next to Tan Son Nhat Airport was completed in 2013 and contains 111.59 hectares of weed-grown area. According to Vietnam Net, It is this zone that worries locals like Tan Binh District's Le Van Sang since the course uses 190 tons of pesticides a year to maintain it:
“We fear that the herbicide used by the golf course will pollute the underground water and put local people at the risk of catching cancer,” he wrote in a letter to Dai Doan Ket’s editorial board.
To compound the issue, many nearby homes aren’t connected to the city’s water supply, requiring them to drill wells that can be easily polluted.
After conducting “thorough research,” Dr. Nguyen Bach Phuc, chair of HASCON, a science & technology consultancy society and head of EEI, a private research institute, and Dr. Nguyen Dang Diep, Deputy Director of the Center for Agricultural Biotechnology, verified Sang’s concerns, saying that “that the golf course will have serious effects on nearby residential quarters.”
Phuc added that the course at Tan Son Nhat is the “only golf course in the world” located in a residential area as strict environmental regulations typically make it more affordable lead developers to build away from them.
It’s unclear as to why these regulations were thrown to the wayside at Tan Son Nhat, but perhaps it’s just the cost of providing this kind of excitement:
