Asia Times: ADB knee-deep in water pollution, villagers say


	May 10, 2000	atimes.com

Southeast Asia

ADB knee-deep in water pollution, villagers say
By Teena Amrit Gill

CHIANG MAI, Thailand - High among the protest banners waved at demonstrations of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) annual meeting in Chiang Mai were those demanding its withdrawal from funding a wastewater treatment plant that villagers say will destroy their environment and their livelihoods.

In a letter handed over to the ADB on the meeting's opening day on Saturday, more than 3,000 protestors representing close to 40 Thai NGOs and peoples' organizations, demanded the bank immediately stop all loans and project level funding to Thailand. They argued that these only benefit multinational firms and rich northern countries, and hurt the poorest sectors in developing countries they claim to be helping. ''Why is it that in western countries the farmers are so heavily protected and subsidized, while here the first thing these governments want to do is destroy our subsidies and our small farmers?'' asked an environmental activist.

The protesters asked for Thailand's social and agricultural sector loan programs, implemented in response to Thailand's economic crisis, to be stopped. Resulting in the privatization of education, health and water sectors, these loans, they argued, will further impoverish the poor. Additional changes in national laws desired by aid institutions will help big local and foreign corporations take over their land, forest and water resources, they added. Further, the removal or reduction of subsidies for farmers will ultimately favor big agri-businesses and commercial monoculture, to the detriment of smaller farmers.

The possible impact of such program loans, which they say contradicts the ADB's new poverty reduction policy is best demonstrated in the Klong Tan area of Samut Prakan district southeast of Bangkok, where a controversial waste water treatment plant is being installed. Toxic chemical wastes which cannot be properly treated by the plant will be released into the community's fishing areas along the Gulf of Thailand, polluting its waters, destroying livelihoods and pushing people into economic hardship.

''Why is it that we have to pay such a high price for the pollution caused by factories located 20 kilometers away?,'' a local resident of the Klong Tan area asked three ADB executive directors who had come to hear their grievances at the parallel NGO People's Forum 2000, held just before the main ADB meet which ended Monday. ''Ours is a green area of Samut Prakan and we rely on coastal resources to feed our population. There are no industries in Klong Tan sub-district. This burden should not be on our shoulders,'' he argued.

The Klong Tan waste water treatment plant in Samut Prakan district is one of the ADB's more expensive and long-drawn projects in the region. A total of $230 million of this $605 million project, approved by the Thai Cabinet in 1995, was pumped in by the ADB alone. The Japanese Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund put in an additional $70 million. Japan contributes the highest amount of funds to the ADB.

''Untreated waste water destroys the environment in a disastrous manner. So something must be done. We would have liked to see this kind of meeting at the beginning of the project. We cannot go back in time and restart from zero,'' Uwe Henrich, the bank's director representing Germany, Austria, Turkey and the United Kingdom, said at the People's Forum meeting.

However, local fisherfolk want to put an immediate stop to the project.

The ADB has become increasingly defensive about the plant, because it has been accused of violating their own written policies. Not only was the plant approved without any environmental impact assessment study, Klong Tan residents say. They add that the bank has also gone against its own anti-corruption and anti-poverty policies.

They also question whether the plant was necessary in the first place. According to Dr Sutin Panapavukkul, a wastewater treatment technology specialist and advisor to the Samut Prakan plant, 40 percent of factories in the Samut Prakan area already have treatment plants installed. Of the remaining factories, only 30-40 percent might be willing to pay the fees and join the treatment plant.

''The project is in violation of Thailand's environmental laws,'' said the Thai ecology NGO Towards Ecological Recovery and Regional Alliance in a briefing paper. ''The Pollution Control Department has not prepared any social or environmental impact assessment nor held public hearings for the project.''

While the ADB has promised to look into this matter seriously, it has not committed any time frame within which it will respond to the accusations levied against it. ''This is a Thai government project and by Thai people. But re-examination of the project must certainly be done,'' Henrich told the People's Forum meeting.

The 200km long system of pipes and a centralized wastewater treatment plant in Bang Po district in Samut Prakan plans to release some 525,000 cubic meters of treated effluents into the sea every day near Klong Tan and Chachaoengsao sub-districts along the Gulf of Thailand. However, the plant does not have the capability to treat the heavy metal and toxic chemicals released by the factories, but only biological wastes. This means the rich sea life of the coastal area is threatened with toxic wastes.

''Our village is next to the Klong Tan area,'' said an elderly villager who traveled more than 1,000km to meet with the ADB officials. ''I raised seven children in this area with very little cash because this is the most fertile strip of coastal Thailand. If anything happens where will we get our livelihood from?''

The Pollution Control Department has already fenced off 1,900 rai (760 acres) of project area including mangrove forests along the coast used by local fisherfolk for shrimp and shellfish breeding. A freshwater channel in the area, used for fishing and to flush out seawater during the rainy season, has nearly been completely destroyed with the dumping of soil used during the construction of the plant, say environmentalists.

With no pat answers to respond to the villagers' accusations, the ADB might indeed find itself in a bit of a fix, say Thai activists. ''The ADB quietly withdrew from their Greater Mekong Sub-region Poverty Reduction and Environmental Management project in northern Thailand,'' says Nokmontree from the Thai environmental group Project for Ecological Recovery. ''We think because the protests against them were so vocal and strong.''

The villagers of Samut Prakarn hope the bank does the same in the case of their district.

(Inter Press Service)

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