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Destructive mega dreams

Bangkok Post 12 June 08
SANITSUDA EKACHAI

 
The end is near. Or so they believe. That is why the Samak administration is pushing through a series of mega-projects to fatten its cronies' bank accounts while the country is already deep in environmental crisis.

When you know your time is running out, you cannot afford to be patient, proper or intelligent. That is why Mr Samak Sundaravej had no second thoughts about announcing his decision to build the controversial Kaeng Sua Ten dam on World Environment Day.

Worse, he delivered a slap to the face of environmentalists worldwide in saying that building big dams is an effective way of fighting global warming.

The price tag of the Kaeng Sua Ten dam: 10 billion baht. This is peanuts compared to what Mr Samak has in mind.

Right after he took office, he announced that he would use his premiership to push for various mega-projects with a combined price tag of 500 billion baht.

Correct. 500 billion baht. A scandal, indeed, when we taxpayers are struggling to pay for skyrocketing food and petrol prices.

Hate him or love him, we cannot accuse Mr Samak of not keeping his word.

As soon as he became premier, he wasted no time in announcing his ambitious plan to divert water from the Mekong River through underground tunnels to feed farms in the Northeast. Some high-ranking officials have risked Mr Samak's ire by pointing out that the Mekong project is not only too costly, but will also upset relations with neighbouring countries which share the Mekong. Moreover, there are problems from Chinese dams upstream which have reduced the supply of natural water in the Mekong.

But there's no stopping Mr Samak and his mega dreams.

When dealing with the international Mekong River is not as easy as he believes, he has turned his attention inward. On Monday, he approved a domestic water diversion plan to feed the Bhumibol Dam in Tak with water from Mae Yuam River in Mae Hong Son, 200 kilometres away. The price tag: 43.8 billion baht.

On the same day, he also approved a 15-billion-baht project to dredge canals and other natural water sources nationwide.

Together, that makes nearly 60 billion baht. Since these two projects are part of the 150-billion-baht water diversion plans, we will soon hear more from Mr Samak. If his government is still around, that is.

Included in the mega water diversion schemes are: the Huay Luang-Lampao in the Northeast (77 billion baht), the Ta-Sae-Bang Sapan in the Upper South (4.5 billion baht), Tapee-Sichon (2.1 billion baht) and Rachaprapa-Phuket (7.2 billion baht) in the South.

Paying heed to neither sensitive local ecology nor local voices, previous top-down development projects have wrought much destruction to the environment and the people's livelihoods. Mr Samak's mega projects will be no different. Even the seemingly safe efforts to dredge canals and natural reservoirs have been the cause of great suffering in numerous locales.

In the deep South, for example, a state scheme to deepen a canal in Pattani's Panare district has ended up an environmental tragedy. When the salty deeper soil was dug up to widen the waterway and build an embankment, the salinity turned the paddy fields into barren wasteland.

Imagine the villagers' suffering. Panare is now full of abandoned houses because the villagers had to leave to find work elsewhere.

That may soon happen to the farmers along the Lampaniang waterway in the northeastern province of Nong Bua Lampu. The scheme to dredge and widen Lampaniang as part of a water diversion scheme has eaten into the villagers' paddy fields. They are crying foul, asking for compensation. Do you think the Samak government cares?

The construction business, the local godfathers-cum-politicians and the bureaucracy will get richer from these mega-projects. Not the villagers. Not Mother Nature. But that is not the government's concern. What counts now is how to clinch the deals and make every minute profitable - before the administration is shown the door.


Sanitsuda Ekachai is Assistant Editor (Outlook), Bangkok Post.

 
 

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