DISCHARGE PERMIT INTO WATER SOURCE

1. What is discharge permit into water source?

Discharge permit is an environment document of an enterprise having no discharge connection application for available wastewater treatment system when it is put into operation.

This permit helps the competent authority to make statistical inspection about accurate wastewater flow rate to be discharged into the surrounding environment to be qualified with regulation of each wastewater type as prescribed.

Application for discharge permit refers to a process of preparing the report on analysis and evaluation of wastewater discharge to receiving water sources (water sources) to propose the proper technology and management solutions to ensure that pre-discharging wastewater is complied with Vietnam Code (depending on receiving waste sources).

2. Main contents of Discharge Permit

a) Name and address of license holder;

b) Name and position of discharging wastewater into water source;

c) Waste sources receiving wastewater;

d) Scale, capacity, flow rate, and key parameters of wastewater discharge works;

đ) Wastewater discharging mode and method;

e) Permit term;  

g) Specific requirements and conditions for each case of discharging wastewater into water source specified by the licensing authority for the purposes of water source protection, ensuring legal rights and benefits of other relevant organizations and individuals;  

h) Rights and obligations of permit holder.

3. Who should apply for discharge permit

3.1. Who should NOT apply for discharge permit Cases not required to apply for the wastewater discharge into water source specified at Clause 5, Article 37 of the Law on water resource, comprises of:

a) Domestic wastewater discharging of individuals and households;

b) Wastewater discharging of production, business and service facilities with scale of not exceeding 5 m3/day and night, containing no hazardous chemicals and radioactive substances;

c) Wastewater discharge of production, business & service facilities not subject to cases specified at Point b of this Clause into the concentrated wastewater collection and treatment systems which have been licensed to discharge into water source and signed with agreement or contract on wastewater treatment or discharge with the operators and manager of such concentrated wastewater collection and treatment;

d) Discharge of aquaculture wastewater with scale of not exceeding 10,000 m3/day and night or aquaculture on sea, river, spring or reservoir.

3.2. Who SHOULD apply for discharge permit with scale of less than 5 m3/day and night Wastewater discharge production, business and service facilities with scale of less than 5 m3/day and night, provided that discharge permit is required to facilities involving following fields:

a) Textile dyeing; garment with dyeing and flower pattern printing phase; laundry with washing and bleaching phase;

b) Metallurgy, metal recycling, plating; production of electronic components;

c) Industrial waste treatment and recycling; tanning and leather recycling;

d) Mineral processing using chemicals; petrochemical refining, petroleum processing;

đ) Manufacture of paper and pulp; plastics, rubber, detergents, additives, fertilizers, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, traditional medicines, cosmetic chemicals, pesticide; batteries, accumulators; chemical-impregnated bamboo and rattan, wood processing; processing tapioca starch, monosodium glutamate;

e) Health examination and treatment with medical wastewater;

g) Test using chemicals and radioactive substances.

3.3. Others NOT SUBJECT TO aforesaid subject group specified at section 3.1 shall be required to apply for discharge permit.

4. Discharge permit term

Discharge permit term is ten (1) years at most, three (03) years at least and considered to extend for multiple times with two (02) years at least and five (05) years at most per each.

5. Authority for issuing discharge permit into water source

5.1. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment issues the permit for following circumstances:

a) Discharge wastewater with flow rate of 30,000 m3/day and night or more for aquaculture activity;

b) Discharge wastewater with flow rate of 3,000 m3/day and night or more for other activities. 

5.2. The permit is issued by the Provincial People's Committee for the cases not specified at Clause 1 as mentioned above.

5.3. Agency in-charge of document and permit receipt and management:

- The Department of Water Resources Management under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment is responsible for receiving, appraising and managing documents and permits under the issuance authority of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.

- The Department of Natural Resources and Environment is responsible for receiving, appraising and managing documents and permits under the issuance authority of the Provincial People's Committee.

6. Application for discharge permit; Application for discharge permit comprises of:

a) Application Form of permit;

b) Project on discharging wastewater into water source enclosed with procedure of operating wastewater treatment system for the case that wastewater is not discharged; report on existing conditions of wastewater discharging with procedure of operating wastewater treatment system for the case that wastewater is being discharged into water source;

c) Analysis results of receiving waste source quality at the discharging position; analysis results of pre and post-treatment wastewater quality for the case that wastewater is being discharged. The water quality sampling time for analysis shall not exceed three (03) months as of submission time;

d) Site map of wastewater discharging area. 20 cases without wastewater discharge works into water source, application for permit to be submitted during investment preparation phase.

7. Sequences and procedures of wastewater permit into water source

Total time for issuing discharge permit into water source (including modification time is 65 working days (excluding public holidays, New Year Festival and document supplement requirements)

7.1. Document receipt and inspection

a) Applicant shall submit two (02) sets of documents and pay for document appraisal fees to the document receipt agency as prescribed by the laws. If it is under the authority of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the applicant shall further submit one (01) document set to the Department of Natural Resources and Environment of the area where works are located as expected;

b) Within ten (10) working days since date of document receipt, the document receiving agency is obligated to consider and inspect the documents. If the documents are invalid, the document receiving agency shall notify the applicant to supplement and perfect the documents as prescribed. If the supplemented documents are still disqualified, the agency shall return such documents and notify the root causes to the applicant.

7.2. Appraisal of projects and reports on exploration, exploitation and use of water resources and discharging of wastewater into water source in the permit application document (hereinafter referred to as project/report):

a) Within thirty (30) working days since valid documents are fully received as prescribed at Clause 1 of this Article, the document receiving agency is obligated to appraise the project/report; inspect the site and establish the appraisal council for the project/report as necessary. In case of eligibility for permit, the agency shall submit to the competent authorities for permit issuance; otherwise, the agency shall return the documents and notify the reasons for permit refusal.

b) In case of modification and supplement for project/report completion, a written notice shall be delivered to the applicant, specifying what contents shall be supplemented and completed for the project/report. The project/report supplement, completion or re-preparation time shall not be included into the project/report appraisal time. After the project/report is supplemented and completed, the appraisal time shall be twenty (20) working days;

c) In the event that the project/report is required to re-prepared, a written notice shall be delivered to the applicant, specifying project/report contents that are disqualified, required to re-do and the application document shall be returned.

7.3. Return the permit application handling results Within five (05) working days since the permit is received from the competent authorities, the applicant is notified to fulfill the financial obligations and obtain the permit.

8. Application form

8.1. Application form for discharge permit into water source is applied in the Form No. 09 of the Circular No. 27/2014/TT-BTNMT

8.2. Project on discharging wastewater into water source (for the case that the works are unavailable or wastewater works are available but not operated) is applied under the Form No. 35 of the Circular No. 27/2014/TT-BTNMT 21

8.3. Project on discharging wastewater into water source (for the case that wastewater is being discharged into the water source) is applied under the Form No. 36 of the Circular No. 27/2014/TT-BTNMT

Main contents of the Report:

Introduction

(1). Present the information about applicant for wastewater discharge permit (name, address, telephone, fax, email, etc.) and discharging facilities (name, position, production- business and service type, commencement year of operation).

(2). Overview the production, business and service activity of the discharge facilities:

(3). Overview the demand on water consumption and wastewater discharging: flow rate of water consumption, average discharge flow rate and maximum discharge flow rate (by m3/ day and night); wastewater quality (specifying Regulation on Wastewater Quality to be qualified before discharging into the receiving water source, applicable coefficient), water volume, post-treatment reusing purposes (if any).

(4). Overview wastewater collection, treatment and discharging.

(5). Present basis of selecting wastewater receiving source.

(6). Summarize the preventive and corrective measures for incidents and controls of wastewater treatment and discharging into water source.

(7). Present basis and document the report preparation.

(8). Information about report preparation:

Chapter I: Wastewater source characteristics;

Chapter II: Wastewater receiving source characteristics

Chapter III: Capacity of receiving source

Chapter IV: Controls of discharging into water source

Conclusions, Recommendations and Commitments: 

Appendices enclosed Report include:

(1). Analysis results of waste source quality at place where wastewater is received, pre and post-treatment wastewater quality (water quality sampling time shall not exceed 03 months as of submission time), enclosed with sampling site map (sampling position upstream and downstream of wastewater discharging position) and description of onsite sampling time (climate, existing conditions of water source and waste sources surrounding the sampling site). (Analysis parameters of receiving source water are complied with the applicable Vietnam National Regulations on surface water quality, inshore sea water; analysis parameters of wastewater quality are parameters available at the discharge source or the Vietnam Regulation Regulations on wastewater quality).

(2). Monitoring figures of wastewater and receiving source water quality (if any).

(3). Regulations on planning water resources, zoning water use purposes and discharging approved by the competent authorities at the place where wastewater receiving source is located (if any).

(4). Site map drawings of wastewater and rainwater collection and irrigation systems;

(5). Description report, design drawings of wastewater treatment system;

(6). Validation document for the organization/individual to be assigned, leased or used the land for locating wastewater guiding/discharging works in the event that their wastewater guiding/discharging system is not located at the land managed by such organization/individual.

(7). Operating lease contract for wastewater treatment system and wastewater monitoring (for the case that the organization/individual is qualified to operate and monitor).

9. Legal foundations:

The Law on Water Resources No. 17/2012/QH13

The Decree No. 201/2013/ND-CP on detailing the implementation of a number of Articles of the Law on Water Resources

The Circular No. 27/2014/TT-BTNMT of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment: Regulations on underground water exploitation registration, application form, extension, modification and re-issuance application form of water resource license

The Circular No. 76/2017/TT-BTNMT on assessment of the capacity for wastewater receiving and carrying capacity of water sources of rivers and lakes.

QCVN 08-MT:2015/BTNMT National technical regulation on surface water quality.

QCVN 40:2011/BTNMT National technical regulation on industrial wastewater.