No
decision on dam until study finished
Chaiyaphum
scheme can still be called off
Anchalee Kongrut, Bangkok
Post, October, 17,1999
Construction
of Pong Khun Phet dam in Chaiyaphum will not start until the government's
fact-finding committee has completed its inquiry, Deputy Agriculture Minister
Anurak Jureemas said.
The committee's findings will
be considered before a decision is made whether to proceed or not, even
though the cabinet gave the green light last month.
The Irrigation Department had
signed a contract with a construction company, but it was still possible
to scrap the scheme because no permit had yet been issued, Mr Anurak said
during a roundtable discussion at the Reporters' Association of Thailand.
The fact-finding committee was
set up in 1997 by cabinet resolution during the Banharn Silpa-archa administration,
following a protest by the Forum of the Poor, to study the impact of four
dams: Pong Khun Phet, Lam Dom Yai in Ubon Ratchathani, Rap Lo in Chumphon
and Kaeng Sua Ten in Phrae.
Mr Anurak infuriated the villagers
in June when he proposed that the cabinet review the resolution. The Forum
of the Poor has complained that there were attempts to circumvent the
cabinet resolution and obtain a construction permit even though the committee
had not completed its task.
Forum adviser Wanida Tantiwittayapitak
said threats had been made against opponents of the dam. One leading critic
was shot and killed by police three years ago, allegedly for possession
of marijuana, she said.
Committee chairman Voravidh
Charoenloet, of Chulalongkorn University, said the study would be completed
in about five months.
The 200-million-baht dam was
first designed to hold more than 100 million cubic metres of water. The
Irrigation Department later scaled its capacity down to 90 million cu/m
to bypass the need for an environmental impact assessment study.
Meanwhile, a group of villagers
who have been staging a live-in protest in the reservoir of the Rasi Salai
dam in Si Sa Ket are being forced to vacate the site by rising water after
the authorities closed all flood gates.
About 1,850 households have
since early August settled on the bank of the reservoir, forming a village,
to demand compensation for their land which they said had been flooded
by the dam.
This followed their failed marathon
protest in Bangkok, where they stayed by Government House for six months.
The Energy Development and Promotion
Department built Rasi Salai dam across the Moon river in 1993 without
conducting an environmental impact assessment study. Only a small number
of villagers were paid compensation.
Thousands of villagers have
since been demanding compensation without much success.
Earlier this month, the dam
authorities began to close the flood gates, forcing the water level up
from 114.7m above mean sea level to 117m.
A statement released on Friday
said the water had now damaged 80% of the villagers' crops. The entire
make-shift village would be submerged if the water rose another 50cm,
the statement said.
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