Pattaya: Resort could face water shortages as reservoirs start to run dry

[webfact]

Pattaya: Resort could face water shortages as reservoirs start to run dry

 

Picture: Manager

 

The chief of the local water authority in Pattaya has warned residents to use water prudently and economically. 

 

Chaithat Itsaeng told Manager that the five reservoirs serving the city were only 20% full. 

 

Only 150,000 cubic liters a day - down from 200,000 - would be released to serve the public's needs. 

 

Picture: Manager

 

Chaithat said there was no need to panic but people should think about how they are using water at this time. 

 

Moves are afoot to supply the city with water from other regions if the reservoirs run dry.

 

Among the measures to conserve water at this time are lowering the pressure at night or other times when consumption is low.

 

Source: Manager

 

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2020-07-10

 

- Whatever you're going through, the Samaritans are here for you

- Follow Thaivisa on LINE for breaking COVID-19 updates

[Peterw42]

I guess they didn't see the memo about the floods a couple of days ago

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I guess they're pretty lucky, as it turns out, that Pattaya in recent months and for many months ahead won't have millions of tourist visitors sucking up what precious little water is available and making the shortage worse for everyone.

 

So the locals may not have jobs, but at least they ought to have a bit more water to drink and bath in, etc etc.

 

[spiekerjozef]

That's what happens if you've got so many tourists.

Ehm wait a minute.....

[Ron jeremy]

They said there was no worries a while back, as rainy season would solve the issue. Now the rains have come, and this? Still lack of water? 

Not good. Perhaps covid was a saviour for pattaya after all!

[KhunBENQ]

1 hour ago, webfact said:

150,000 cubic liters a day

"cubic liters", another translation highlight

150,000 cubic-meter I bet (150 million liter).

[phetchy]

Maprachan has noticeably more water in it than it did a month ago.  Still much lower than it needs to, but every little helps.  We're still on rationing.  It now seems to be about two days on, one day off.  It was one on, one off earlier so ????. 

[Greenhill]

Once again, proving that they couldn't organise ANYTHING!!!!     2 days ago the place was under water and today, they're warning about drought!!!!!    It's beyond bewildering!!!!!!

[Pilotman]

The combination of lakes at and around 'Silver Lake' are brimming full and they are laying irrigation pipes as we speak. It's not all doom and gloom. 

[Libai]

The monsoon arrives every year, they need to be prepared for it, how about digging deep reservoirs as a starter to hold the water?   No too difficult is it? 

Edited July 10, 2020 by Libai
add a word

[Srikcir]

Follow the government's solution for water management for EEC: build more reservoirs.

[Cake Monster]

Pi55 poor planning ~ in this case of infrastructure ~ will always equal Pi55 poor performance.

Reservoirs need to be deep to hold Water - Lots of it, and they need to be fed with the correct catchment to fully utilise the rainfall.

The PWA had ample opportunity during the Drought to deepen the Reservoirs and improve the catchment, but they did nothing.

We are already 2 Months into the Wet Season, with another 3 to go, and the Water retention in the Reservoirs is pathetic.

Thailand wont be able to offer Tourists any Vacations due to a poor Water Supply situation when the Borders reopen.

Pathetic

[ragpicker]

And yet Pattaya keeps on building, expanding, breeding..... incredible.

[phetchy]

58 minutes ago, Srikcir said:

Follow the government's solution for water management for EEC: build more reservoirs.

Cause and effect.  Not enough water + take fewer showers = dirty, smelly foreigners. It's  OK, the PM said so.  https://thethaiger.com/hot-news/environment/pm-tells-thais-to-take-shorter-showers , find an alternative. 

 

 

Or............. Oh no, forgot - sorry, can't do that!

Edited July 10, 2020 by phetchy

[Leaver]

33 minutes ago, ragpicker said:

And yet Pattaya keeps on building, expanding, breeding..... incredible.

Yes, without corresponding upgrades to infrastructure.  Dry taps, blackouts, and traffic congestion to come.   

[Cake Monster]

15 minutes ago, Leaver said:

Yes, without corresponding upgrades to infrastructure.  Dry taps, blackouts, and traffic congestion to come.   

No so much traffic congestion with all the new Roads around Pattaya

Its called Thai Infrastructure, unfortunatley, all the wrong kind.

[digger70]

7 hours ago, webfact said:

Resort could face water shortages as reservoirs start to run dry

That's a Laugh ,,,, what happen to the Flood water a few days ago ? They let it Drain the Wrong way?  ????

[Kerryd]

SIgh.
The storm runoff doesn't go into the reservoirs (thankfully). You really don't want all the <deleted> from the sewers and roads and ditches being dumped into your water supply do you ? 
And no, they don't have a "treatment" plant to decontaminate the water. They have small processing plants at the reservoirs which seem to be mainly for pumping the water into the various pipelines to feed the different parts of the city. I suspect that, at most, they filter the water to remove the "larger" particles of matter before it goes into the water lines.

There is talk about trying to divert storm runoff into the reservoirs, however it seems that the idea is to just dump raw runoff water into the reservoir and hope that most of the <deleted> and contaminates in that water don't end up in coming out your tap.

It seems their plan is to mix the storm runoff as well as maybe the output from the waste water (sewage) treatment plants in with the "clean" water in the reservoirs to increase the supply. As there is no mention of treating that input, it would appear that they are hoping it will be diluted enough with the fresh water that it wouldn't present a problem.

While the idea of diverting all that massive amount of storm runoff into the reservoirs sounds like the easy way to do it, there are complications and not just to do with the contaminates in that water. Collecting the runoff and then piping it to the reservoirs would be a major undertaking in itself. New containment pools, filters, pumps and pipelines would have to be constructed.

Consider that, at the bottom of the railway bypass where that car ended up in the lake of water, the elevation there is (approx) 20 meters above sea level.
Meanwhile, Mabprachan reservoir is at about 50 meters. So all that water has to be pumped up 30 meters in elevation and over 6kms (straight line distance) to get to the reservoir.

(The other reservoir on Chaiyapruek 2 is about 4kms straight line and a bit lower in elevation but would still require the water to be pumped uphill quite aways and that would take some heavy duty pumps and piping.)

It would not be a simple, or cheap, way of replenishing the reservoirs.

[Leaver]

4 hours ago, Kerryd said:

SIgh.
The storm runoff doesn't go into the reservoirs (thankfully). You really don't want all the <deleted> from the sewers and roads and ditches being dumped into your water supply do you ? 

Sigh.

 

When you concrete over everything, rain water can not get to the reservoirs and just runs off, but lets keep developing and concreting.  ???? 

[shdmn]

Maybe if they stopped or at least slowed down all the runaway development it would help.  Of course that's not going to happen.

 

This is one of the reasons I would probably never live in Jomtien.  I think they are at the end of all the water lines. I think a lot of condo's already get lots of water trucked in because of all the shortages.

Edited July 10, 2020 by shdmn

[jacko45k]

Christ, we just had pics of a woman being swept off in her car down the railway line bypass and Khao Noi turning from klang to klong.

Edited July 10, 2020 by jacko45k

[mikebell]

All they need to do is lay a pipe from Kao Noi/Talo direct to the nearest reservoirs - they will fill up within days.  Also finish the drainage of the Railway road - an on-going project lasting at least five years in my memory.

[hotchilli]

23 hours ago, webfact said:

Pattaya: Resort could face water shortages as reservoirs start to run dry

Just as well the smelly tourists aren't here in their thousands to take showers every day.

[Leaver]

12 hours ago, hotchilli said:

Just as well the smelly tourists aren't here in their thousands to take showers every day.

Makes you wonder which one is worse for Pattaya.  No tourists, blamed on Covid-19, or no tourists, blamed on no water for flushing toilets and taking showers, thus making Pattaya / Thailand a laughing stock in the global tourism market.  

[phetchy]

13 hours ago, Leaver said:

Makes you wonder which one is worse for Pattaya.  No tourists, blamed on Covid-19, or no tourists, blamed on no water for flushing toilets and taking showers, thus making Pattaya / Thailand a laughing stock in the global tourism market.  

But slightly more serene - going backwards in time and all the better for expat farangs (who don't have to rely on a local form of income) if I might be so bold as to suggest.

[JensenZ]

On 7/10/2020 at 3:23 PM, Libai said:

The monsoon arrives every year, they need to be prepared for it, how about digging deep reservoirs as a starter to hold the water?   No too difficult is it? 

There is no "monsoon" season in Pattaya. The most rain falls in August to October, but not monsoon rain.

[jb5music]

Maybe somebodies avatar could put a tarrif on ut. That'd fix ut. All the bargain brands of bottled water could disapear out of 99 various and sundry developing nations store shelves. Who cares? great great great.

[phetchy]

On 7/11/2020 at 7:04 AM, mikebell said:

All they need to do is lay a pipe from Kao Noi/Talo direct to the nearest reservoirs - they will fill up within days.  Also finish the drainage of the Railway road - an on-going project lasting at least five years in my memory.

The top of Soi Khao Talo and Khao Noi are both at least 100+ feet above sukhumvit at that point.  You can't pump that much water up and over to get to Maprachan or Chark Nork?  

[jimmybcool]

Didn't I read about a massive funded project to connect Pattaya's water sources to a river near BKK?  It was supposed to solve all future water shortages.  Well, what happened?  Where did the money fo?  

 

Doing a quick google displays articles as far back as 1990 about water shortages.  Yet, they keep growing the city.  

 

 

[Kerryd]

12 hours ago, jimmybcool said:

Didn't I read about a massive funded project to connect Pattaya's water sources to a river near BKK?  It was supposed to solve all future water shortages.  Well, what happened?  Where did the money fo?  

You may be thinking of the recent news about a project to pipe the outflow from some waste water treatment plants in Chon Buri to an Industrial Estate in Samut Prakan. Those treatment plants are near the large river east of Bangkok (Bang Pakong river which itself is in the sliver of Chachoengsao that separates Chon Buri and Samut Prakan provinces).

Piping water from a the Bang Pakong river would require well over 70kms (straight line) of pipe (through a lot of urban areas) as well as creating a reservoir/dam to draw from (can't just drop a 1 meter pipe in the middle of the river after all).

However, linking the reservoirs to the east of Pattaya, in Chon Buri and Rayong, would be quite a bit shorter, go through less developed areas and draw from existing reservoirs (so no need for new containment dams, just basically tap into the systems already in place at those reservoirs).
Though one has to remember that a lot of that water probably already feeds Rayong and the Industrial Estates around Rayong and Chon Buri.

(You would also have to make sure the pipe is drawing from an area far enough
upstream that it wouldn't be affected by the tidal flow or half(+) of the water
would be salt water. Not to mention all the garbage of course !)                                      Simpler and shorter to connect a pipeline to the reservoirs to the East.