EEC Act aggravates pollution crisis

EEC Act aggravates pollution crisis

The Map Ta Phut Industrial Estate in Rayong, one of the three coastal provinces covered by the government's flagship Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) scheme. (Photo courtesy Industrial Estate Authority of Thailand)
The Map Ta Phut Industrial Estate in Rayong, one of the three coastal provinces covered by the government's flagship Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) scheme. (Photo courtesy Industrial Estate Authority of Thailand)

Setting aside an upcoming March 24 general election, the country's other pressing issue at the moment is the air pollution caused by fine dust particles, known as PM2.5.

Over the past weeks within greater Bangkok, concentration levels of PM2.5 -- particulate matter with a diameter of less than 2.5 micrometers -- have exceeded the "safety standard" set by the Pollution Control Department (PCD).

The occurrence of this health-damaging smog should have prompted the government to review not only the country's safe PM2.5 thresholds but also its regulation of the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) scheme. Apart from being a potential site of air pollution, the EEC will also result in a massive land grab from small-scale farmers and the poor.

For most of this month, the average PM2.5 levels in the capital and adjacent areas have been two to three times higher than the World Health Organisation's (WHO) recommended safe limit of 25 µg/m³. Even though City Hall began Tuesday to declare "pollution control zones" in some areas where PM2.5 concentration exceeds safe limits, the PCD itself has refrained from advising the government to designate these zones.

That is because the PCD is worried more about the country's "international image", fearing that there could be damages caused to the tourism industry and consequently the country's gross domestic product (GDP).

The PCD's stance reflects the typical mindset of the bureaucratic system under the dictatorial regime. The PCD is not fearless enough to propose to the government that Thailand should change its safe thresholds for the daily and annual average PM2.5 concentration levels, which are now set at 50 µg/m³ and 25 µg/m³ respectively, by moving them closer to the WHO's recommended average levels of 25 µg/m³, daily, and 10 µg/m³, yearly.

Another state agency that deserves scrutiny is the Ministry of Industry which has distorted facts by telling the media that its recent inspection of 470 factories, deemed as potential polluting sites, finds that the "dust" concentrations there do not exceed the safety standard. Its "findings" reveal that the dust levels in 59 of 142 large-scale factories emitted from their chimneys range between 0.8 to 50 µg/m³. The safe limit set for factory chimney emissions is 240 µg/m³.

But you should not be misled by those numbers because they may not represent PM2.5 levels. The fact is the environmental law fails to require factories to specifically monitor PM2.5 emitted from their chimneys. It merely states that they must monitor their "dust" emission.

While some officials at the PCD may be thinking whether they should propose designating greater Bangkok into pollution control zones, a top member of the government has been busy hosting a sticky rice and mango banquet to woo Chinese tourists back to Thailand without showing his concern about the polluting haze.

Instead, the 7.5-million-baht sum spent on such campaigns can and should be used to buy 250,000 protective face masks, which are expensive and in short supply, for residents.

This is a vision of the government which has boasted about its 20-year national development strategy and other aspects of "reform".

Previously, China had encountered a similar, but worse, situation. Before the government's declaration of war against pollution in 2014, China had concealed information about PM2.5 concentration. But the US embassy in Beijing had its air monitoring station that tweeted out its PM2.5 readings, which prompted the Chinese public to be increasingly alert on the issue.

Given that the safety standard set by the Chinese government was lower than that of the United States, Chinese people started to ask: Is the living standard of American people higher than that of the Chinese?

Similarly in Thailand, the government has expected people here to have a stronger physical and mental state than those in countries where the levels of PM2.5 are closer to or within the WHO's recommended standards.

Attention is also needed on the government's Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) development project.

The thing is that the three coastal eastern provinces, Chachoengsao, Chon Buri and Rayong, have already shouldered excessively high pollution brought about by the state's previous economic and social development plans.

At the moment, there is an urgent need for a strategic environmental assessment to be conducted throughout this region.

This is to get a fuller picture of how much pollution the EEC will cause to ecosystems and the environment in these provinces.

The first thing the EEC Policy Committee should do is to come up with a comprehensive land utilisation plan.

The EEC will force many farmers to lose their right to use state lands, for the purpose of agricultural reform, a right which has been bestowed under the Agricultural Land Reform Act.

However, the 2018 EEC Act enables the state to reclaim such land from the farmers and reallocate it for EEC investors, under concession, for the development of their projects.

As of December last year, the agricultural land in the EEC zone stood at 1.1 million rai. Parts of this massive piece of land will be up for grab for investors.

Benefits for foreign investors, granted by the government, include tax exemption and a new 99-year land lease right.

The EEC Act also scraps the town planning process for the three provinces. Moreover, it also establishes a committee to specifically consider and approve environmental and health impact assessment (EHIA) reports on a case-by-case basis for EEC projects.

It allows such reports to be conducted by foreign experts, instead of Thais.

The EEC Act also has a loophole which will enable "experts" conducting EHIA reports to sit on the committee approving the EHIA studies.

As a result, there will be conflicts of interest in the making and approving of EIHA reports.

Moreover, the act also shortens the time for approving EHIA reports to 120 days. Such a process usually takes as long as a year for other projects.

More worryingly, the EEC Act overrides the core principles of the Agricultural Land Reform (ALR) Act on the protection of the land use right of small-scale farmers and the poor and the prohibition of such land from being used for purposes beyond agriculture.

Given that both the EEC Act and ALR Act have equal legal status, the regime should have issued a royal decree if it wanted to bypass these core principles of the ALR Act, similar to what it has done in other places. But it has chosen to give the EEC special treatment.

When such core principles are overlooked, the Agricultural Land Reform Act becomes an empty legal tool in the EEC region.

This is a massive seizure of land rights from local people in order to accommodate the new industrial zone which will eventually emit more PM2.5 across wider areas and on a larger scale.


Lertsak Kumkongsak is an environmentalist and a coordinator of the Ecological and Cultural Study Group.

Lertsak Kumkongsak

An environmentalist

Lertsak Kumkongsak is an environmentalist and a coordinator of the Ecological and Cultural Study Group.

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