Just who is the public, anyway? ( Y

[ausgeo@xxxxxxx]

Subject: Just who is the public, anyway? ( Yadana pipeline )

6 May 1997 

The Nation 

Just who is the public, anyway? 

The Yadana pipeline project shows that the environmental approval process must 
be fixed if development is to proceed smoothly. This is the second of a 
two-part series. 

If there's one thing that throws fear into a company or agency trying to get 
their development project approved, it's the prospect of opposition by local 
villagers. 

Most official opposition from, say, the Office of Environmental Policy and 
Planning (OEPP), can be overcome with the right political backing. This was 
clearly demonstrated when the OEPP caved in to pressure and approved the 
Yadana pipeline project even though not all the proper studies had been 
completed. 

But villagers can be incredibly stubborn, and once convinced a project is not 
in their interests, they will fight it tooth and nail. Many local people in 
Kanchanaburi, for instance, are convinced that their concerns over the safety 
of the gas pipeline being built by the Petroleum Authority of Thailand (PTT) 
have been ignored. They point out that it will run through an active fault 
zone and could become the target of attacks by guerillas opposed to Burma's 
dictatorship, and say they will oppose the project. 

A pattern has clearly emerged from this and other troublesome cases. Officials 
typically argue the projects won't threaten local residents or damage local 
resources. But villagers no longer trust such statements, and even if they 
did, they are certain the projects won't help them. 

The case of the Pak Mool Dam seems to have become particularly famous, or 
rather, infamous. At public hearings held earlier this year for two vastly 
different projects ­ the dredging of Pattani Bay in the South and the Yadana 
pipeline project in Kanchanaburi ­ local opponents stood up and called on 
people to ''remember Pak Mool". 

In response, officials sputtered that a dam in Isaan had nothing to do with 
their projects, but they missed the point. At Pak Mool, explained one of the 
villagers in Pattani, the people were told their livelihoods as fishermen 
would not be harmed by the dam. When the reverse turned out to be true, they 
had no one to turn to. The call to ''remember Pak Mool" is really a call 
asking for more public say over these development projects, and for more 
accountability from officials. The current process for reviewing projects no 
longer has any credibility. Any lingering trust people had was finally 
shattered when the Yadana pipeline project was passed without the completion 
of the necessary studies. 

If developers, both private and public, want their plans to move ahead more 
swiftly, they should join in the calls for reform of the environmental impact 
assessment (EIA) process. Four basic areas need to be revamped. 

*The process for approving EIAs, which are typically reviewed by an OEPP 
expert committee, is not transparent enough. The public usually does not even 
know who sits on this committee, much less the reasons why they vote. 

The possibilities for abuse were clearly shown with the Yadana project. Dhira 
Phantumvanich, the well-respected president of the Thailand Environment 
Institute (TEI), sits on the National Environment Board and voted on whether 
to approve the project. But in late 1995, his institute received a three-year, 
Bt9 million grant from the PTT to plant trees on five 500-rai reforestation 
sites, two of which are located in Kanchanaburi. 

''I have been very open about all my activities," explained Dhira. ''I was the 
chairman of the pipeline project's technical hearing, and everyone could see 
that I acted in a neutral fashion." 

Indeed, no one has accused Dhira of abusing his position, and no one seems to 
believe that if he had opposed the project it would have made any difference ­ 
there were some very powerful people determined to see it go through. 

But at least one environmentalist has questioned the PTT's motives in giving 
the TEI the money, and if Dhira had been a politician or a businessmen, he 
probably would have been accused of conflict of interest. With all due 
respect, Dhira should probably have excluded himself from the vote on the 
project, if only for symbolic reasons. 

*The quality of the EIAs is very uneven. The problem here is that the 
developing agency or company chooses the consultants from a list provided by 
the OEPP, and then pays the the consultants directly. The developer can in 
turn apply a lot of pressure on consultants to make sure the EIA is to its 
liking. 

Potential problems are often explored only cursorily, if at all, as was the 
case with the EIA for the pipeline (see yesterday's article). Sometimes the 
problems are explored, but then downplayed in final reports, if not avoided 
entirely. When the EIA for the expansion of Map Ta Phud port was approved last 
year, for instance, the reviewers seemed to have no idea that large quantities 
of cyanide and mercury had been found in the sediment offshore, and could be 
dredged up by the construction work. 

Assessing an EIA, and a project itself, therefore becomes a very difficult 
process. If the OEPP chooses to reject a report, or if it is questioned by 
outsiders, then the developer typically complains about delays, or of a 
''devious plot by foreign competitors" to sabotage the project. This system 
needs to be changed if EIAs are to have any credibility. 

One possibility is for the developer to pay a sum of money into a central fund 
controlled by the OEPP, which can then hire a team of consultants to study the 
project. 

The consultants would then no longer be beholden to the developer for its 
budget, and could carry out their work in a more fair and complete manner. 

*The monitoring of environmental and safety conditions after a project is in 
operation also needs to be improved. All too often, protective procedures 
promised in the EIA are never carried out, or done in a lackadaisical fashion. 


What's more, where monitoring systems are put in place, the information must 
be made accessible to the public. In the past, such data has been jealously 
guarded by the Department of Industrial Works. 

*The social component of EIAs needs to be strengthened. The old rachakan 
mentality of seeking local approval for a project by paying off a few kamnan 
will no longer work in this democratic age. 

Some countries have taken to carrying out separate social impact assessments, 
but it probably makes more sense to study the social and environmental effects 
of a project together. Currently, the public and technical hearings used to 
gather local opinion are held at the end of the EIA process, by which time 
their input has little meaning. This may seem convenient for developers but 
it's detrimental in the long run, as people tend to feel ignored by the 
process and come to resent the project. 

The current system causes frustration for everyone. ''Just who is the public 
anyway?" asked one exasperated consultant. The answer is, it's better to find 
out who they are sooner, rather than later. 

James Fahn is The Nation's environment editor.