Hundreds of the residents of Sa-iab sub-district, in Song district of Thailand’s northern province of Phrae, staged a protest today against the possible revival of the controversial Kaeng Sua Ten dam project, which would straddle the Yom River.
The villagers have persistently resisted the project. If completed, they claim it would deprive them of their birth place, ruin their livelihoods and destroy about 6,400 hectares of gold teak forest.
The protesters are focused on Deputy Prime Minister Phumtham Wechayachai, Public Health Minister Somsak Thepsuthin and former deputy prime minister Plodprasop Suraswadi for their initiative to revive the project, to resolve the chronic twin problems of drought in the dry season and flooding in rainy season in the Yom River basin.
Harnnarong Yaowalert, a protest leader, said that Sa-iab sub-district residents have been fighting the dam project for more than 50 years. The government of then Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra decided to revive the project, but it was not implemented because of the coup in 2014.
The Yom River basin covers Phayao, Phrae and Sukhothai provinces.
Plodprasop claims that the reservoir behind the Kaeng Sua Ten dam would be able to store up to two billion cubic metres of water and would spare Sukhothai from repeated flooding.
An opponent of the project, Assistant Professor Sitang Pilailar, of the Faculty of Engineering at Kasetsart University, contends, however, that the dam will not save Sukhothai from repeated flooding because only 10% of the northern runoffs will flow into the reservoir and there are 19 other tributaries, which flow along other courses and pour into Sukhothai.
