Water projects in wetlands need
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The Natural Resources and Environment Ministry yesterday is calling on the government to conduct environmental impact assessments (EIA) for projects meant for wetland areas.
The ministry’s deputy permanent secretary Suraphon Pattani, who also chairs the wetland management subcommittee, said that the panel had met to discuss the watermanagement project that will be implemented in the wetlands to resolve flood problems.
At the meeting, the panel concluded that the government should follow the 2004 and 2009 Cabinet resolutions that require an EIA be conducted before any installations in freshwater swamp areas are allowed.
He said he had instructed the Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning to draft guidelines for an initial environmental evaluation and reduce the approval period from six months to one month.
Meanwhile, committee member Prof Thongchai Pansawas said he was against the government’s plan to use Bueng Boraphet – central Thailand’s largest freshwater swamp – as a monkeycheek area, saying that it would severely affect biodiversity in the area.
Since Bueng Boraphet, a 100,000rai swamp in Nakhon Sawan, is south of the Nan River and close to its confluence with the Ping River it would not be appropriate for use in water retention, he added.
He explained that the swamp was only a metre deep and could store up to 50 million cubic metres of water. Since the volume of water that the swamp can retain is not very much, it is not worth large investments. Besides, boosting the capacity of Bueng Boraphet would severely damage the biodiversity of the area.
“If the government wants to use Bueng Boraphet as a waterretention area, they will have to use several pumps to drain the swamp and make more space for water collection during the rainy season. It will be an expensive operation,” Thongchai said.
