Sea sand used in Mekong Delta road construction amid river sand shortage

The building of the road using sea sand belongs to a pilot project of the Ministry of Transport to replace river sand with sea sand in construction projects.

Running nearly 1 km long, the road is linked with the under-constructed Can Tho – Ca Mau Expressway and is now used for trucks to transport building materials to serve the expressway's construction.

The section where sea sand was used stretches 300 m long. The rest of it is built with river sand for quality comparison.

Work started on the section in late March and was completed early this month.

To build it, around 5,000 cubic meters of sea sand had been extracted off the coast of nearby Tra Vinh Province.

According to the Transport Ministry's My Thuan Project Management Board, which manages the road's construction, the section built by sea sand has shown no abnormal signs in quality.

"The results obtained from the sea sand pilot are very positive until now," said the board's director Tran Van Thi.

Environmental monitoring results also show that using sea sand to build the road's foundation has not increased the salinity level in the freshwater sources and soil around it.

So far, shrimps grown on farms on both sides of the road have remained healthy and stable.

Work on the Can Tho – Ca Mau Expressway in the Mekong Delta is three months behind schedule as it has only received 8% of the sand needed.

The 110-km road requires 18.1 million cubic meters of sand but has received less than 1.5 million cubic meters.

The expressway is considered the most important road in the Mekong Delta, connecting many localities with 128 bridges.

An investigation into the illegal mining of Mekong Delta sand in August has resulted in scarcity that has pushed up its price and hindered major construction projects in the region, including the expressway.

However, as overexploitation of sand resources leads to riverbank erosion, localities in the Mekong Delta have also been working on finding sustainable alternative materials.

According to the Transport Ministry, there are three coastal locations where sea sand could be mined and processed to serve construction projects, including 13.9 billion cubic meters at two locations in Soc Trang Province, and 2.1 million cubic meters at a mine in Tra Vinh Province.