Cracks in Thailand's Chaiyaphum Dam Cause Alarm by Phairath Khampha 16 April 2000 Hundreds of farmers gathered in Chaiyaphum on April 6, 2000 to draw attention to a cracked dam they said threatened to bring devastation to two districts downstream. The villagers said the Lamkhanchoo Dam, which had large fractures, was built by Thanasin Co, linked to Vuttichai Sa-nguanwongchai, a deputy industry minister and Chart Pattana member. Dams in Thailand are often built a corrupt make-construction-project projects, usually with little consideration of social, economic and environmental impacts. Local people are usually duped about the projects' benefits and in the end pay a high price while members of Thailand's corrupt economic and political elite enrich themselves massively through corrupt contracts for the work. Phra Pichet Yasuntaro, a Buddhist monk who wass supporting the protest, said the villagers, mostly from Bamnetnarong district, demanded immediate action to repair the dam. Kun Klinsrisuk, a farmer, said Bamnetnarong and Jatturat districts face devastation if the 170-million-baht dam collapsed. The reservoir can store 65 million cubic metres of water, he said, and villagers living downstream said there was a serious threat of collapse. Before Thanasin Co was awarded the contract to build the dam, local people and non-government organisations had aired concerns that were disregarded as is the usual case in Thaland's water resources development projects. In fact, ordinary Thais are all up in arms about the Asian Development Bank's water resources capacity building project, which started in April, and was being carried out by Halcrow Water and TEAM Engineering, both contracted by the ADB. They said the project only serves to complicate water resources management in Thailand even further and would create a foundation for more corrupt management of the country's increasingly scarce water resources. Mr Kun said: "All concerned officials, including a district chief, the provincial governor and irrigation officials neglected our concerns that had been expressed publicly since last October [1999]."Attempts to seal the cracks with asphalt could not possibly mitigate the threat of inundation downstream because the pressure is much too high, he said. "They may be university-trained engineers, but they seem to have thrown their professionalism to the wind in their haste to make money and carry out these projects like amateurs," he added. The villagers also wanted the authorities to complete the dam project by building the irrigation canals that were contained in the original blueprint, as promised. Another villager said local people supported the project because it would bring water to their crops and facilitate a second crop, but now it was obvious they were duped just so the project could go ahead and the wealthy owners of the companies involved could get their money, and increase their profits by shoddy construction. "But now we cannot grow the second crop and we also face flooding," he added.