Allowing large sand mines on Ba River through Gia Lai

On January 3, Mr. Nguyen Tuan Thanh - Permanent Vice Chairman of Gia Lai Provincial People's Committee - signed a decision approving the results of the appraisal of the environmental impact assessment report of the construction sand mine project in Ia Rsai and Uar communes.

This project has been approved by the People's Committee of Gia Lai province (old) for investment policy and approved by the investor in June 2025; recognized the winning auction results for construction sand mineral exploitation rights at Chu Gu commune sand mine, Krong Pa district (old).

Khanh Thanh Phat Gia Lai Company Limited is the investor of the project with a total area of 112,300 m2. In which, the exploitation design area in Ia Rsai commune has an area of 100,000 m2.

The total reserve included in the exploitation design is 560,000 m3 of geological sand, with a total exploitation period of 10 years. The exploitation capacity is as follows: in the first and 10th years (the last year) is 40,000 m3 of geological sand/year; from the second to the 9th year is 60,000 m3 of geological sand/year.

The People's Committee of Gia Lai province requires enterprises to be responsible for monitoring riverbank erosion, establishing a book to monitor riverbank developments, and fully recording when there are landslides.

The authorities assessed that exploitation activities such as internal transportation from the mine to the storage area, transporting finished products for consumption... pose a potential risk of destabilizing the riverbank geology, leading to landslides; disrupting the natural flow of the river, affecting aquatic life; damaging local transport infrastructure.

Therefore, local authorities and project investors are responsible for handling and monitoring environmental incidents to promptly report and soon have prevention plans. In addition to environmental reserves, investors must also comply with other regulations such as reinforcing river banks when there is a risk of landslides, recovering, improving the environment, repairing and upgrading traffic routes with vehicles.

As Lao Dong Newspaper reported, the Ba River flowing through the (old) Krong Pa district has abundant sand reserves. However, for a long time, illegal sand mining has often occurred here, causing public outrage.

Illegal sand mining, failure to install weighing stations to avoid taxes, illegal sand mining, sand without invoices, documents, mining exceeding the designed capacity... have caused loss of State tax revenue.

In 2024, the local government proposed that the Provincial People's Committee and the Department of Agriculture and Environment of Gia Lai province soon complete the procedures for granting mineral exploitation rights to sand mines in the area.

The closure of some sand mines and the delay in granting new sand mines have caused a serious shortage of this important construction material. Local people, contractors, construction units of houses and traffic infrastructure have to buy sand at high prices.

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