Pak Mun River residents slammed yesterday's Cabinet move to let water levels determine the opening of dam gates, saying the government was just trying to buy time. The Ubon Ratchathani governor was told to open the Pak Mun Dam spillway gates when the river was high.
. . . the Cabinet set up a water-management committee chaired by the governor and supervised by the Interior Ministry. It altered regulations on the opening and closing times to reflect "natural circumstances" as demanded by the Assembly of the Poor and Uthai Thani officials on July 4, he said. . .
Nanthachote Chairat, an adviser to the Assembly of the Poor, said the Cabinet was just procrastinating by throwing the problem back to the locals to fight it out among themselves. He accused the government of setting up a group of villagers, village headmen and kamnan who agreed to keep the dam's gates shut so they had a supply of water to irrigate their farms.
This was despite the villagers' request to allow fish to swim upstream and spawn so they could engage in seasonal fishing, he said while dismissing reports that his group had a meeting with the premier on July 4."
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2007/07/18...al_30041306.php
0
Pak Mun dispute heats up
Started by Sexpat, Jul 21 2007 09:56 AM
1 reply to this topic
#2
-
- Members
-
- 3,744 posts
Veteran
Posted 21 July 2007 - 04:03 PM
QUOTE
Never ending battle: farmers vs. fishermen
Not quite, but that's what the government and EGAT, the national electric company, would like you to believe. In reality, according to the folks in the affected communities, the reason EGAT never wants to open the dam is that it adversely affects the facility's output of electricity, which is the whole reason the dam was built in the first place.
If you want to read a history of the dam, which was finished in 1994, and according to the locals and environmentalists, see the alleged disastrous effects the dam has had, take a look at:
http://www.irn.org/programs/pakmun/index.php?id=basic.html
