The government's reaction to heavy metal contamination in transboundary rivers in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai provinces has left local villagers in despair. Almost three months after heavy metal contamination was recently detected in such rivers, our officials and ministers are still just at the stage of warning people not to consume water and fish from the Kok River in the North.
The Paetongtarn government and the army still cannot find a way to hold talks with the United Wa State Army (UWSA), a powerful militia that controls part of eastern Shan State, where almost 20 gold mines are operating. Mining areas are connected to transboundary rivers such as the Sai, Kok, and Mekong rivers. It would not be surprising if these mines did not have waste disposal systems to treat wastewater and toxic byproducts before discharging them into the environment.
Deputy PM Phumtham Wechayachai admits that negotiating pollution reduction is difficult because these mining activities are not in Thailand. "The best thing we can do is to protect ourselves," he said.
The self-protection measure that the deputy prime minister was talking about is the check dams that the Thai government will build on these rivers in Thai territory, to filter hazardous substances that can be disposed of later. The Department of Water Resources is designing the dams.
The bigger question is whether these check dams can fulfil the function of protecting villagers and the environment. The answer is no. Unlike debris, toxic heavy metals can seep in and accumulate in the environment and enter the food chain. What is more worrying is that check dams, if not designed properly, can expand toxic contamination. The government cannot just build these structures and send staff to collect waste. Conservationists warn that dam structures must be designed to prevent contamination from river overflows.
Another question is how the government can deal with the massive amounts of toxic sediment flowing downstream. The government must find a considerable budget to dispose of these toxic sediments properly at a secure landfill that will be costly to build and maintain.
The check-dam idea shows that the government never learned a lesson from the failed check dams at Klity Creek in Kanchanaburi province. Since 2017, the Pollution Control Department (PCD) has spent almost 800 million baht to build check dams along Klity Creek to trap lead-laden sediments that flowed from a local lead mining operation three decades ago. Up until now, toxic contamination has remained. The creek still contains more than 700,000 tonnes of hazardous lead sediment.
The scale of the pollution from gold mines will be much larger. The government needs to hold immediate talks with the Myanmar government and UWSA, which is known to be aligned with the Myanmar military. The Chinese government must also be looped in on talking with Chinese miners, who are understood to be involved. As the contamination is expanding to the Mekong River, it is about time for the Mekong River Commission to act.
Doing nothing or hoping for a small band-aid solution, like using dams to trap sediments, will cause this river pollution to become a major pollution crisis in the Mekong Region.