Asia Times: Thai community activists score a point


	March 30, 2002	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

Thai community activists score a point
By Marwaan Macan-Markar

BANGKOK - Thai parliamentarians from across the political spectrum have promised community activists they will launch an inquiry in early April to investigate the glaring shortcomings in a wastewater treatment project near the Gulf of Thailand.

This pledge was made on Thursday by 17 parliamentarians following an hour-long meeting with leaders from the area where the controversial wastewater project - funded by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the first subject of its inspection process - would be located.

"We need to get more details of the project and find a strategy to solve the issues raised by the people," says Kittisakdi Hathasongkorh, chairman of the committee on science and technology, as activists asked the Thai government to heed the recent findings of an independent inspection panel on the wastewater project and put a halt to it.

Community activists from Klong Dan and Song Klong, the two areas southeast of Bangkok that will be affected by the construction of the Samut Prakarn Wastewater Treatment Project, have sound reasons to be troubled, says committee member Prasert Dennapalai. "It is a problem, the planned project. The wastewater system should not have been built this way," he says, referring to the report by an inspection panel that said the Manila-based ADB failed to comply with environmental and social standards in the US$750 million project.

But while the activists welcome this demonstration of sympathy toward their cause, they are far from sanguine about their objective - for the government of Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra to stop the Samut Prakarn project. "The promise to investigate is encouraging, but we need to wait for the committee's final decision about what they plan doing after the investigation," says Dawan Chatarahasadee, a community leader and spokeswoman for the activists. "We want the project stopped," she insists. "This view is not new to the Bank. We have been objecting to their plans for the past three years."

More than 60,000 villagers in the Klong Dan and Song Klong areas will be among the affected of an estimated 1.2 million people living in Samut Prakarn province. Daily, this area has to endure the wastewater streaming out of some 4,000 factories. The ADB says it approved the loan for the wastewater treatment scheme because it would help manage the industrial, commercial and residential wastewater that flows to the sea through open canals and rivers. The Bank says the project will benefit those most affected by pollution - women and low-income families living close to some of the large factories and the low-lying flood-prone areas.

But the inspection panel, set up by the ADB itself, found that the project did not have an environmental impact assessment, that there was "failure to consult local people" at Klong Dan and that resettlement procedures and good-governance mechanisms were not followed. "The rights and interests of the people who are in the vicinities of the treatment plant could be adversely affected by the odor, lowering or property value and potential problems caused by the existence of toxin and heavy metal in the sludge management," it says in the report publicized last week.

In a statement on Thursday, the ADB showed no sign it was changing its backing for the scheme that is also funded by the Thai government and the Japan Bank for International Cooperation. However, its board of directors approved the recommendations made by a Bank committee that looked into the inspection panel's report. ADB president Tadao Chino, also chairman of the board of directors, notes that "while the recommendations approved today did not specifically mention the question of compliance with [Bank] operational policies and procedures, views on that key question were divided". The Bank's board, however, approved suggestions that it improve community participation in the Samut Prakarn project.

But for Dawan and fellow activists, the inspection panel's findings are new reason to press their case, and presented a petition on behalf of the affected communities to the parliamentary committee on Thursday. Close to 80 people from Klong Dan and Song Klong came to the Thai capital to lend support to this petition addressed to Thaksin.

"We have never challenged the importance of having an appropriate wastewater treatment facilities to help deal with the pollution problem in Samut Prakarn. We are challenging the location and the negative impacts associated with siting the [wastewater treatment project] at its present location in Klong Dan," the petition argues. "We strongly demand that the government take this opportunity to stop the project," it adds. "Continuing the project will seriously damage the coastal and marine livelihoods of hundreds of local people and the coastal ecosystem."

How the Samut Prakarn project turns out may well be crucial not only to the community bound to be affected by it, but also for the ADB's process of reassessing its projects. In the Samut Prakarn case, the inspection process was triggered by a request made last April by the affected community. This was the first case handled by the inspection panel - which the Manila-based bank adopted from the World Bank's similar mechanism of dealing with complaints by those affected by its projects. Bank officials tried to focus more on the inspection process, saying it allowed feedback from all parties concerned - but fell short of acknowledging that it had not followed its own standards or that it would change the project.

"The first inspection case has provided a great learning opportunity," says Chino. "We must all participate actively in the ongoing review. I have placed utmost importance to ensuring that consultation both within and outside [the Bank] is done conscientiously. The panel did what it had to do as an independent body."

But in a letter to Chino on Tuesday, activists from Klong Dan and Song Klong say that it is time for the Bank to take the "correct steps" for the project, as suggested by the inspection panel. If not, the letter notes, it will be "evident that the [Bank] leadership and senior management appear unwilling to take responsibility for their own actions and initiate appropriate action to correct their mistakes".

(Inter Press Service)