Phuket makes waves: Forum tackles island’s watery woes

[snoop1130]

 

Thailand’s popular island destination of Phuket held a forum to discuss the region’s persistent water issues, led by Secretary-General of the Office of National Water Resources (OWNR), Dr Surasee Kittimonthon. The forum, which took place yesterday, was attended by over 300 individuals, including Phuket Vice Governor Amnuay Pinsuwan and Phuket Chamber of Commerce President Kongsak Khuphongsakorn.

 

Dr Surasee later joined another similar event at the Dara Hotel in Wichit. The purpose of these gatherings was to solicit feedback, opinions, and suggestions from locals on the integrated master plan to solve flood-drought problems. The ONWR asserted its readiness to engage with tourism business operators to expedite water-saving measures in the tourism and service sectors.

 

Dr Surasee noted that Phuket was among the initial provinces in Thailand to draft water-resource management master plans at the Subdistrict (Tambon) level. The forum was intended to garner public opinions on the master plan study project and to hear suggestions on the preliminary projects drawn from the plan, which outlined more than 400 ready-to-deploy projects.

 

The official report stated that implementing these projects would enable the government to quickly address urgent issues in the area and use it as a model to replicate the results of project implementation in each aspect of water resource management that supports the development strategy of Phuket Province until 2037.

 

Three urgent projects were highlighted: The improvement of the quality of the village water supply in Pa Khlok, the Tha Maphrao Canal Dredging Project, and a project to construct a weir to reduce water flow and soil erosion in the upper area of the Kathu Waterfall community, reported The Phuket News.

 

By Mitch Connor

Caption: Picture courtesy of PR Phuket

 

Full story: The Thaiger 2023-09-20

 

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[hotchilli]

11 hours ago, snoop1130 said:

Thailand’s popular island destination of Phuket held a forum to discuss the region’s persistent water issues, led by Secretary-General of the Office of National Water Resources (OWNR), Dr Surasee Kittimonthon. The forum, which took place yesterday, was attended by over 300 individuals, including Phuket Vice Governor Amnuay Pinsuwan and Phuket Chamber of Commerce President Kongsak Khuphongsakorn.

Persistent water issues are a result of persistent in-action by officials.

Lets have another meeting to discuss it again.

Wash, repeat next year.

[Tropposurfer]

There isn't enough land to build a large enough dam from what I can see ... well, not without consuming a huge area of the nation park and displacing traditional & other Thai landowners.

Maybe a dam on the mainland, solar powered pumping via pipeline?

 

As for the sewer and grey water issue ... there is next to no processing that makes any slight, let alone significant dent in this outfall problem.

Most of us that live here all know the stench and black putrid water in every creek on the island which when full and rains or high high tides roll in that flush directly into the sea.

 

The contamination of the islands runoff and outfall with solid, man made wastes is appalling and equal to the worst I have seen across the world. This includes Bali where its creeks are awash half a metre deep (literally) in plastic waste.

 

The issues of unfettered, one-use plastics continues entirely unabated, and catastrophically disastrously.

 

There is next to no waste management on the island. There certainly is no multi-layered, integrated waste management system of any effective note.