Villagers decline blankets, fearing dirty tricks

Seng Kwanyeun, kamnan of tambon Sa Iab, said yesterday that residents of Ban Don Chai Moo 1, Ban Don Chai Sak Thong Moo 9, Ban Mae Ten Moo 5 and Ban Don Kaew Moo 6 had discussed the government’s annual blanket handout, as the weather was getting colder. They agreed not to take the blankets this year because the process requires submitting a name and ID card number, Seng explained. 

The villagers fear that the state agency involved might use their names, ID card numbers and signatures to back the construction project, which they have long opposed, the kamnan said, adding that he had notified district officials and related agencies.

The residents want the government to stop pushing for large-scale dam construction projects including Kaeng Sua Ten, Yom Bon and Yom Lang because building one such dam would cost the country Bt12 billion-Bt14 billion, but in the end might not be able to prevent flooding, he said. 

The proposed Kaeng Sua Ten and Yom Lang projects are located on the Mae Yom fault line. If a disaster occurred, it would affect Phrae, Sukhothai, Phitsanulok and Phichit provinces, Seng said. 

He said he had suggested community management, watershed rehabilitation and deforestation prevention, so the forest could serve as a natural and sustainable dam, as well as absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen. Community forests should be promoted in each and every community so that locals could collect herbs, bamboo shoots and mushrooms, while each home should grow plants, he said. Communities should be encouraged to conserve the environment and construct check dams, while the better-equipped communities should also help their lesser-equipped sister communities, he added. 

More mid-sized and small reservoirs should be built on the 77 tributaries of the Yom River, and each community should have a “monkey-cheek” area, Seng said. Together, these would be able to store three times more water than Kaeng Sua Ten Dam, he said. He cited a Water Resources Department survey that found that 395 such sites could hold 1.5 billion cubic metres of water, compared to the Kaeng Sua Ten Dam’s projected 1.175-billion-cubic-meter capacity. 

Developing such sites would cost just Bt4 billion – a third the cost of the Kaeng Sua Ten Dam, he said.