'Dirty Tricks' Ahead Of Mae Wong Dam Hearing

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'Dirty tricks' ahead of Mae Wong Dam hearing today

Pongphon Sarnsamak

The Nation

NAKHON SAWAN: -- Thousands of people in Lat Yao district in Nakhon Sawan and nearby areas will join a public hearing today to learn about an environmental and health impact assessment (EHIA) linked to the Mae Wong Dam.

The event, held by the Royal Irrigation Department, aims to reveal final results of the EHIA and seek opinions from locals and relevant agencies, Kuesak Thathong, chief of RID's Environmental Bureau, said.

A battle to sway public opinion has begun with many pro-dam billboards erected in Lat Yao and a conservationist warned not to discuss negative impacts from the dam.

The RID hired an environmental consultant/creative technology company to conduct the EHIA for the dam project. The firm began conducting a study for the assessment in August last year. It is expected to be done by July 25 this year.

The EHIA report says the dam will cover 12,900 rai of Sob Kok mountain in Nakhon Sawan's Mae Wong district and Khanuworalukburi in Kamphaeng Phet province. Some 12,300 rai of this is in Mae Wong National Park. And the dam will deliver water to 291,900 rai of irrigated areas.

The study found over 12,900 rai of forest will be destroyed. Most of these areas are mixed deciduous forest, dry dipterocarp forest, and bamboo forest. Dam construction will affect the head watershed class 2 and class 3A. Building the dam will also affect the habitat of more than 400 wildlife species - most of them birds.

However, the study proposes five ways to resolve water issues in Mae Wong district and Sakae Krang watershed - a tributary of the Chao Phraya River.

The first solution the study suggests is for related agencies to manage existing irrigation infrastructure and not invest any budget. The second suggests these agencies invest Bt579 million for the construction of small dams along the river.

The third 'solution' is to build small dams and a reservoir on a farmer's rice plantation. This would cost about Bt 1.8 billion. The fourth is to build small dams and develop an underground water system. This would cost about Bt600 million to build. The fifth is to build the Mae Wong Dam, at a cost of Bt13 billion.

To date, there are about 164 projects in Sakae Krang watershed to resolve water problems. In Lat Yao district in Nakhon Sawan, there are two projects, including small dams on Klong Khun Rat. Small dams have also been installed at Ban Wang Sam Ran to resolve water problems.

Panudej Kerdmail from the Sueb Nakhasathian Foundation said they would send a person to the hearing. But it had found the EHIA by the company lacked details about the impact from the dam on the number and species of wildlife and flora that will be affected. It also did not mention compensation for locals who will lose land.

A resident from Lat Yao district, who did not want to be named, said she did not have much information about the dam. No officials had explained the pros or cons of the project. She heard via the media that today’s event would give results of the final EHIA study.

"Even if the dam is good for us, it would be better related agencies dredge and maintain the 'dead' canals," she said.

Meanwhile, many billboards voicing backing the dam project were installed in the district prior to today's public hearing.

Another local person, who leads a conservation group, who did not want to be unnamed, said he would not attend, because had been threatened by a group of armed people, who asked him to not speak about environmental impacts from the dam.

-- The Nation 2012-05-21

[DeepInTheForest]

So the powers that be are using their muscle, and local opposition is being given the steamroller treatment.

The big money knows only one logic-- that of the bottom line. Dipterocarp forest? What's that?

The last great treasures of the world are falling to the machine of capital, sad to say.

[MEL1]

I wonder who had just bought all this rainforest?

The perpetrators of armed gangs, per chance?

-mel.

[Reasonableman]

Not So Amazing Thailand: SNAFU

[moe666]

PTP want this no matter the destruction and little benefit

[OzMick]

PTP want this no matter the destruction and little benefit

Why "little benefit"? 292000 rai of irrigation, flood mitigation, possible HEP generation in the future.

[Reasonableman]

Seems like no matter how much you feed them, the เห็บ are always hungry for more.

[DeepInTheForest]

PTP want this no matter the destruction and little benefit

Why "little benefit"? 292000 rai of irrigation, flood mitigation, possible HEP generation in the future.

Every dam is sacred,

Every dam is good....

[OzMick]

PTP want this no matter the destruction and little benefit

Why "little benefit"? 292000 rai of irrigation, flood mitigation, possible HEP generation in the future.

Every dam is sacred,

Every dam is good....

Show your real green side. Try living on 1% of the electricity you use now, just for a week.

[noitom]

So the "dirty tricks" are?

[Dibbler]

The problem with big dams is that they simply don't work http://www.internationalrivers.org/problems-with-big-dams No amount of lobbying to sway public opinion in favour of this project will change that. The impacts of the Mae Wong Dam can already be predicted. Just look at Pak Mun and other sagas that pitted wildlife and rivers, and locals dependent on these things against selfish interests of city-based influential people.

It is surprising that an illegal activity such as destroying a watershed in a National Park can happen at all, even with an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIT). In Thailand EIAs are usually done by consulting firms that offer the lowest fees to the state agencies, and so win the contract. These companies are cheap because the their staff often lack expertise in certain areas, such as biodiversity, wildlife, plants, fisheries, air, pollution, water quality, social science, or all of the above. The EIA is quite often incomplete, in some cases, completely worthless and then it is reviewed by individuals who are too busy, or poorly qualified or ill informed to be able to detect the problems with the report.

Local environmental groups are led by people who are not smart enough or fail to hire smart enough lawyers to debate the failings with the EIA. The EIA process fails to identify the glaring problems imposed by all large hydropower projects. This is the "dirty trick" played by EGAT, the state agency that normally contracts these mega projects. Many decades of disastrous dam projects have failed to stop successive national governments from hoodwinking the public and stealing public money.

Since the EIA process is flawed and fails to stop otherwise problematic dam projects, a different kind of investigation is needed here. This could be called WHAMS or Who Ate from the Mae Wong Swill? This would be an investigation to find out who are the beneficiaries from dam construction and collateral damage to the environment. This would be relatively easy to do since many politicians aren't that smart, especially local MPs and Or Bor Tor . They needn't be smart or qualified to get elected, so they don't cover their tracks that well, especially when the smell of money is thick in the air.

The WHAMS would seek to establish who in govt receives kickbacks for giving permissions to cut the forest and clear the land in the proposed reservoir area, which companies are involved in the forest clearance and sale of the timber, rattan, bamboo and other non-timber forest products and which companies purchase these stolen resources and where they go and which market they end up in, who receives kickbacks for issuing contracts for the construction of the dam, roads to access the site, areas for extracting landfill in the forest, locations for erecting telephone microwave towers, and other infrastructure, and which contractors and subcontractors and lawyers are involved in feeding from the swill. Banks involved in financing the individuals and companies involved would also be identified.

A detailed report would then be posted online and shared with local and international reputable journalists to post not just in Thailand but in the international media. WHAMS would be the ultimate "trick" to be played on these sharletons that call themselves elected representatives of the Thai people, banks that finance environmental destruction and illegal activities, and the people involved in the environmental terrorism that is associated with such dam projects that are widely known in Thailand and around the world to rarely if ever produce the benefits they were designed for. This kind of investigation has been done rather well by Global Witness who exposed the illegal timber trade in Cambodia and identified in graphic details that particular web of corruption. Thailand needs their help here.

There are likely other very worthy and interesting investigations that might be made in Thailand by a dedicated and thick-skinned environmental investigation agency, such as WBSI (Who Bought the Stolen Ivory?), WBCA (Who Bought the Confiscated Animals?), and KNOTIL (Karaoke Nights of the Thai Illegal Logger.