CHANG NOI: The rush to blast the Mekong

The Nation. Published on Sep 23, 2002

Until recently, the government was planning to start blasting the bed of the
Mekong River in Chiang Rai to create a channel for larger shipping in
December, just three months from now. The project is now on hold. But it has
the look of another Pak Mool disaster on a much, much larger scale.

Anyone who has travelled along this stretch of the Mekong, from Chiang Saen
towards Luang Prabang in Laos, will know it is crammed with rocks, rapids,
shoals, cataracts and whirlpools. Blasting enough of this away to make room
for 300-ton ships will radically change the river. Driving such big ships
down the channel will change it again. The stream will flow faster. Water
levels will change. Riverbanks will be affected by the flow rate and ships'
wakes. Fish breeding grounds will be disrupted. All this in turn will have
an impact on the people who live along both sides.

But the government is telling us the impact will be insignificant. In fact,
the government was hoping we wouldn't find out about this at all.

The original plan comes from China, which wants to redesign the Mekong River
for navigation. In April 2000, the Thai government signed an agreement with
China (and Burma and Laos). The agreement says any changes must respect
local laws. But that's just part of the boiler plate. There was no public
discussion, no public hearing, no debate.

No impact assessment was required, but the project went ahead with one for
form's sake. The study of this ambitious redesign of a major world waterway
took just six months to complete. It concluded that the impact would be
insignificant. It blithely states the project "is acceptable to environment
protection laws" in all four countries.

The Mekong River Commission condemned this report as "substantially
inadequate", "fundamentally flawed", and "not up to international standard".
Most of its findings were simply "speculation".

Yet in January of this year Cabinet approved the plan to dynamite rapids -
11 in the first stage, and another 51 later. Some preliminary blasting was
carried out. Then the word started to get out.

Projects like Pak Mool, Bo Nok and Hin Krut started in the Dark Ages. When
they were challenged, government shuffled its feet, looked at the ground,
acted embarrassed and said, sorry, this was all fixed under the old rules;
let's just have a nice public hearing and get on with it.

But the Mekong blasting originated in the era of the 1997 Constitution and
the Freedom of Information Act. Local communities are supposed to have a say
about what happens on their doorstep. Information is supposed to be
available. The environment is supposed to be valued enough that nothing big
is done without proper study. But the Mekong blasting started with no local
consultation, no public announcement, no public hearing, no proper study.

Once the news was out, civil society swung into action. NGOs dug information
out of the deep mines where government had buried it. Activists published
preliminary studies about the impact on the riverbanks, fish breeding, plant
life and fishing communities. Local people put together a petition. A Senate
subcommittee visited Chiang Rai in June and called for the project to be
halted.

The response again came right out of the Dark Ages. The minister responsible
(Transport and Communications) kept his mouth shut. The prime minister
looked the other way. The Asian Development Bank, which has made Mekong
development one of its specialities, gazed on stoically. A heroic example of
the ostrich-defence gambit.

Then the activists found a chink in the armour. Suppose the blasting altered
the river course. That might change the national boundaries - which have
never been properly mapped and hence run down the middle of the main
channel. There was a stunning risk that a few rocks might change from
"Thailand" into "Laos".

This information was sent to the defence minister. Reacting valiantly to
this threat to the national boundaries, General Chavalit had the project
suspended.

Attacks on local communities and on the environment could be ignored. An
attack on "the nation" (or at least, a few of its wet rocks) could not. But
realism suggests this suspension is only temporary and cosmetic. China is
behind the project. Chavalit is friends with China. Some work-around way
will be found before too long.

What does this incident tell us about life in the new post-Dark Ages of the
People's Constitution and the Freedom of Information Act?

Government can still sign international agreements, pass Cabinet resolutions
and authorise inadequate impact studies on a big project with big potential
impact, without consulting the people who will be affected.

The Senate reacted to the issue. But where were the local MPs, the
representatives of the people? It's probably significant that the Chiang Rai
Chamber of Commerce is very keen on the Mekong Navigation Project. Its
members like the prospect of more river trade and tourism.

One of the fishermen roused against the project said: "I really think these
business people are the 'never-have-enough' people. They might have a
hundred million baht now, but they still want another thousand million
baht."

Although the project and the process clearly contravened several sections of
the Constitution (especially section 56, but also 46, 76 and 79), there is
no mechanism to activate the Constitution in such a situation.

On a technicality, the government was able to evade the 1992 Environment
Protection Act, carry out a "patently inadequate" impact assessment and
conduct no public hearing. It is time the 1992 Act was amended. Its scope
must be widened so it is not so easy to evade. The process for appointing
consultants to carry out impact assessments must be taken away from the
offices promoting the project and given to an independent body. These
assessments must look at the social as well as environmental impacts.

Proper public hearings must be part of the process. Some means must be found
to make the courts uphold the Constitution.

There are few strategies of environmental defence dodgier than relying on
General Chavalit.

Chang Noi is a pseudonym.

Read the responses:
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/page.news.php3?clid=11&id=1179&usrsess=1

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