Parties work together to solve gold mine pollution
The Nation

BANGKOK: -- A five-party panel is working to help people affected by a gold mine in Phichit province through three measures, including a traditional-medicine programme to reduce their heavy-metal contamination.

Phichit Governor Surachai Kan-asa said yesterday a programme based on traditional medicine was found to have reduced the level of heavy metals in villagers' blood in two weeks.

"That's one of our measures," he said.

These three measures were proposed at a meeting on how to alleviate the problem of contamination reportedly caused by Akara Resources, which operates a gold mine in the province.

The committee comprises representatives of local people, Akara Resources, academics, administrative officials and the military. Two other measures were to find water sources outside the affected areas and provide villagers with water purifiers so they can have clean drinking water. The governor proposed importing organic vegetables for villagers who cannot eat home-grown crops for fear of possible contamination.

Heavy metal substances have been identified in the blood samples of 401 out of 723 villagers, according to the Central Institute of Forensic Science and Rangsit University. The university has already agreed to local people's request that it conduct tests on 6,000 more villagers.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/Parties-work-together-to-solve-gold-mine-pollution-30252328.html


-- The Nation 2015-01-21

Quite obvious Quack remedies outweigh conventional medicines , whatever, the main crux of this is the Goldmine at Phichit , firstly these mines operate in the west without any problems due to strict environmental safety standards , so what's happened here, we have a company from South Australia that is the parent to Ankara the Thai subsidiary, what has brought about this pollution , shortcuts , lack of regard for the country and it's people, indifferent management to the environmental aspects of the site , lazy approach to safety , what , The disposal of mine tailings and waste is of utmost importance, shame on kingsgate and Ankara for getting into this mess through bad management decisions and practice, that's all it amounts to.

Without a measure to stop the mining operations from environmental pollution, anything else is only a stop-gap or meaningless measure. It looks like the Junta isn't going to intercede on behalf of the welfare of Thais but support the continued assault on these people's health and welfare.