People in the western provinces of Thailand are urging the authorities to halt a project to build a motorway connecting the outskirts of Bangkok to the western coast, because of environmental concerns about the Mae Klong River Basin.

According to Green News TV, on 14 August 2015, representatives of people from Nakhon Pathom, Ratchaburi, Phetchaburi, and Samut Songkhram provinces in western Thailand submitted a letter and documents to Adm Wallop Kerdphol, head of the Sub-committee on Natural Resources and the Environment of the National Legislative Assembly (NLA), over a proposal to build the motorway connecting Nakhon Pathom with Cha-Am District of Phetchaburi, a famous resort town in western Thailand.

The representatives of the four western provinces requested the state authorities to halt the infrastructure project, pointing out that it would be detrimental to the environment and livelihoods of people many of whom are farmers along the Mae Klong River, which originates in the western Tenasserim Hills and flows through several western provinces before emptying out into the Gulf of Thailand in Samut Songkhram Province.

The current blueprint of the Nakhon Pathom-Cha-Am motorway project (Photo from Green News TV)

In addition, they also called on the authorities to investigate the public and private agencies involved in conducting the Environmental Assessment Impact (EIA) on the project, saying that locals who would be most affected by the project did not participate in the EIA and that it failed to foresee the environmental impacts on the river basin and farmlands, which are among the most productive in the country.

The EIA on the 119 km motorway, which is estimated to cost about 80.6 billion baht (about 2.3 billion USD), was approved in 2009. Currently, the project is in the process of planning land expropriation and issuing a Royal Decree to expropriate land plots for construction.

The motorway project would cut through many of the region’s canal networks and farmlands and would mean that local farmers would lose their rights to manage the water resources in the area in additional to some of their farmlands, which would be expropriated.

Sumol Sutawiriyawat, a resident of Phetchaburi Province, said that the motorway project would not only affect her farmlands, but it would also change the traditional ways of life by which people in the Mae Klong River Basin cohabit with the environment.

Typical orchards abundant in the western provinces of Thailand, which rely on networks of canals in the Mae Klong River Basin (Photo from Green News TV)

According to Surajit Chirawit, the president of Prachakom Khon Rak Mae Klong (Association of People Who Love Mae Klong), the current motorway project model will definitely have negative effects on the region's socio-economic situation. Nonetheless, he pointed out that this does not mean that the project should be totally scrapped.   

He suggested that the authorities rethink the feasibility of the project and come up with different models to minimise the impact that the motorway construction might have on the environment.

Surajit added that there are also alternatives to the project, such as an upgrade or enlargement of existing roads in the area, which would be much cheaper than the current motorway plan and have much less environmental impact.

The leader of the Association of People Who Love Mae Klong pointed out that he and other representatives of local people had earlier voiced concerns about the environmental impacts of the project in 2009, but this did not stop the controversial EIA on the project from being approved by the state authorities.