If this were a Hollywood movie, the plot would be laughed out of the cinema. An evil government department, accountable to no one, conspires with an even more evil big business to pollute the waters and environment of a small, remote group.
When taken to court, the department simply waves away the verdict to fix its mistakes. Then it acts with more big businesses to increase the pollution.
Life is not the movies, unfortunately - not in the region of Klity Creek in Kanchanaburi province anyhow.
No one is laughing at this scenario around the small, poor Karen community. For decades, mining activities have poisoned the Klity Creek waters and region. Lead in the creek has caused illness and deaths.
Last year, at the climax of one of the nation's greatest legal battles by an underdog, the Supreme Court made a huge ruling: It ordered the Pollution Control Department (PCD) to clean up Klity Creek.
This order for the PCD to do the only job for which it exists has been airily ignored by the department.
And now, the Lawyers Council of Thailand has discovered that the Mineral Resources Department (MRD) has begun steps that logically have just one possible aim.
The MRD is actually looking to reopen old mines which already have turned adjacent forests in Kanchanaburi province into a hazardous area.
These mines are not far from the one which destroyed Klity Creek and the lives of ethnic Karen forest dwellers there.
Begin with the PCD. A Supreme Court ruling in January gave the department 90 days to get the lead out of Klity Creek. To call the PCD's response half-hearted is an exaggeration.
After taking some sediment from pits left around the village by the old lead-mining company, the PCD effectively sat down on the job. "No money" to clean up the creek, it said.
In a move that rejects the Supreme Court's order, the department said "natural rehabilitation" of Klity Creek would be better anyhow.
That is a fancy way of saying the PCD will do nothing, and maybe the flowing water will eventually make the creek safe again.
There are 10,000 tonnes of lead-contaminated sediment in Klity Creek. The court told the department to clean it within 90 days. The PCD still has not done that.
None of this should be happening.
The MRD was arguably acting illegally and against the national interest in allowing dangerous lead-mining operations in the first place. The MRD may have allowed big mining operations inside a national park. It is most assuredly acting against the national interest if it even tries to license new mining operations under current circumstances.
Then there is the PCD, whose very name states its single purpose.
Here is one mark of the trust that the entire country places in the department: Its Facebook page, now 25 months old, has garnered 31 "likes". The Water Quality Bureau of the PCD alone has 156 staff. Not even its employees "like" this department.
The PCD has no business thumbing its nose at the court, let alone the long-suffering Karen of Klity Creek. It must be made to follow the court order, do the right thing, and work hard to repair the sick environment at Klity Creek.
The government itself owes it to the entire country to prevent the MRD from killing other waterways, like it has done to Klity Creek.