The new government should look into alternatives for water management in the Yom River as they actually exist, said Sa-iab community representatives
Some twenty Sa-iab community representatives travelled to Bangkok today to urge the new PM, Paethongthan Shinawatra, to scrap the plan to build the Kaeng Sua Ten dam on the Upper Yom River. The group submitted their petition to concerned officials at Government House, asking her to exercise her power to call the project quit alongside the Upper and Lower Yom dams, citing they have prolonged years-long conflict between the community and officials concerned.
The government, they suggested, actually has alternatives especially the so-called Sa-iab Model, under which small-scale water development projects have been proposed to replace the mega-dam constructions.
Kaeng Sua Ten Dam was first proposed in the 1980s by Egat before the project was transferred to the Royal Irrigation Department with the storage capacity set at around 1,100 million cu m. The purposes of the dam were later expanded to cover flood prevention for communities downstream especially in Sukhothai province.
The dam, however, would submerge the country’s last patch of golden teak forest in Kaeng Sua Ten National Park in Phrae province up to 41,000 to 60,000 rai. Sa-iab community, which is located in the park, would also be submerged as a result, prompting the villagers to be up in arms against the dam for decades. The Upper and Lower Yom dam projects were later proposed as alternatives but could not help settle the conflict between the villagers and officials concerned.
Years later, officials from the Office of National Water Resources (ONWR) and the RID tried working with the villagers to settle the conflict. They managed to come up with up to 14 alternatives comprising a number of small-scale water development projects dubbed as “Sa-iab Model”, which pleased all sides.
The RID’s projects, for instance, would include at least 26 small reservoirs scattering over 77 tributaries of the Yom River. The Water Resources Department, meanwhile, proposed nearly 400 “monkey-cheek” reservoirs to help retain excess water with a storage capacity of up to 1,500 million cu m when combined. The projects, however, have been sluggish. The first two projects of the RID just started last year.
As the floodwater submerged the North last month, Kaen Sua Ten Dam has been dusted off and called on by politicians and ministers of the majority government of Ms. Paethongthan from the Pheu Thai Party.
“You have recently declared the new government policies in Parliament especially those regarding our natural resources and environment that they would be pursued with the benefit of the people and the environment. However, some of the politicians in your government as well as some officials keep pushing the projects despite the fact that we have alternatives.
“They would prove to be merely destructive to our forests, and destruction of the forests is the destruction of our lives,” said ? Mr. Natpakal Srikhampha, president of the Sa-iab anti-dam village committee.
Earlier, Deputy PM Phumtham Wechayachai brought the issue up during the flood period and said it’s time to review the Kaeng Sua Ten project, citing the need for the Yom River to have dams to help regulate the water as none of them exist. (Read PERSPECTIVES: เขื่อนแก่งเสือเต้น เขื่อนยมบน และเขื่อนยมล่าง ควรหรือไม่ควรสร้าง?)
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