Locals in South ‘lack details on coal plants’

The Southernmost People’s Network of Community Rights and Environment Safeguards for Peace (Permatamas) yesterday finished the third day of its long march to the site of the coal-fired power plant in Thepa district in Songkhla. 

The march was to raise public awareness of the Thepa coal power plant. Demonstrators said it would not only harm the environment and health of local people, it would mean reclaiming land from mosques and a Muslim cemetery.

Permatamas put out the statement on the last day of the march from Prince of Songkla University to Thepa. Organisers said the main problem they had found was that many people still did not have enough information about the power plant project and its likely impact.

It concluded that people’s awareness about such a large development project like the Thepa coal plant was limited. This lack of public participation and comprehensive information showed the project was totally in conflict with government policy to end the insurgency in the far South by respecting people at all levels being able to be part of such moves.

“Peace in the Deep South must [mean] not only that the area has no more violence, but people must have a clean and better future, with no pollution from coal,” the group said.

Meanwhile, the Southern Border Provinces Administration Centre (SBPAC) presented plans for a new coal-fired power plant in Panare district to the National Legislative Assembly (NLA). 

It said the site could be an alternative site for building a coal-fired power plant in the South if power plants proposed for Krabi and Thepa were delayed by protest.

The NLA energy committee’s report on a power plant in Panare revealed that the project would be a 1,000-megawatt coal-fired project situated on 2,600 rai of land by the coast. It was planned to begin power generation by 2034.

The report claimed local people welcomed a coal-fired power plant. The project was also listed in a national energy policy committee announcement as one of the power plants permitted under Order 4/2559, issued by the National Council for Peace and Order, to be built in any area on a city plan.

Direk Hemnakorn, Permatamas coordinator and a professor at Prince of Songkla University, said the group opposed any coal-fired power plant in the Deep South. He reasoned it was a polluting industry and these projects totally ignored the identity, culture and religious beliefs of local people.

“We are concerned that large scale industrialisation of the southern border provinces will escalate the southern insurgency because these projects do not respect local culture, which is the root of any southern insurgency,” Direk said. 

“The SBPAC claimed that local people agreed to the project, but indeed many did not want the power plant in their area. It is unwanted development.”

However, Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat) Project Environmental Division director Anuchart Palakawong said a proposal to construct a new coal plant in Panare district was still not an Egat plan.

“The coal-fired power plant project at Panare district is just a proposal by SBPAC, as they wanted to bring investment to the area to boost the economy, which will in turn ‘solve’ the South insurgency. But we still don’t have a plan to construct a power plant there yet,” Anuchart said.