In December this year, government was planning to start blasting the bed of the Mekong river in Chiang Rai to create a channel for larger shipping. The project is now on hold. But it has the look of another Pak Mun disaster on a much, much larger scale.

Anyone who has travelled down this stretch of the Mekong from Chiang Saen towards Luang Prabang will know it is crammed with rocks, rapids, shoals, cataracts, and whirlpools. Blasting enough of this away to make room for 300-ton ships will radically change the river. Driving such big ships down the channel will change it again. The stream will flow faster. Water levels will change. River banks will be affected by the flow rate and ships' wake. Fish breeding grounds will be disrupted. All this in turn will impact on the people who live along both sides.

But the government is telling us the impact will be insignificant. In fact, the government was hoping we wouldn't find out about this at all.

The original plan comes from China which wants to redesign the Mekong river for navigation. In April 2000, government signed an agreement with China (and Burma and Laos). The agreement says any changes must respect local laws. But that's just part of the boilerplate. There was no public discussion, no public hearing, no debate.

No impact assessment was required, but the project went ahead with one for form's sake. The study of this ambitious redesign of a major world waterway took just six months to complete. It concluded that the impact would be insignificant. It blithely staes the project “is acceptable to environment protection laws” in all four countries. The Mekong River Commission condemned this report as “substantially inadequate”, “fundamentally flawed”, and "not up to international standard". Most of its findings were simply “speculation”.

Yet in January of this year, Cabinet approved the plan to dynamite rapids -- 11 in the first stage, and another 51 later. Some preliminary blasting was carried out. Then the word started to get out.

Projects like Pak Mun, Bo Nok, Hin Krut started in the dark ages. When they were challenged, government shuffled its feet, looked at the ground, acted embarrassed and said, sorry, this was all fixed under the old rules; let's just have a nice public hearing and get on with it.

But the Mekong blasting originated in the era of the 1997 Constitution and the Freedom of Information Act. Local communities are supposed to have a say about what happens on their doorstep. Information is supposed to be available. The environment is supposed to be valued enough that nothing big is done without proper study. But the Mekong blasting started with no local consultation, no public announcement, no public hearing, no proper study.

Once the news was out, civil society swung into action. NGOs dug information out of the deep mines where government had buried it. Activists published preliminary studies about the impact on the river banks, fish breeding, plant life, and fishing communities. Local people put together a petition. A Senate subcommittee visited Chiang Rai in June and called for the project to be halted.

The response again came right out of the dark ages. The minister responsible (transport and communications) kept his mouth shut. The prime minister looked the other way. The ADB, which has made Mekong development one of its specialities, gazed on stoically. A heroic example of the ostrich defence gambit.

Then the activists found a chink in the armour. Suppose the blasting altered the river course. That might change the national boundary which has never been properly mapped and hence runs down the middle of the main channel. There was a stunning risk that a few rocks might change from "Thailand" into "Laos". This information was sent to the Defence Minister. Reacting valiantly to this threat to the national boundary, General Chavalit had the project suspended.

Attacks on local communities and on the environment could be ignored. An attack on "the nation" (or at least, a few of its wet rocks), could not. But realism suggests this suspension is only temporary and cosmetic. China is behind the project. Chavalit is friends with China. Some work-around will be found before too long.

What does this incident tell us about life in the new post-dark age of the People's Constitution and the Freedom of Information Act?

Government can still sign international agreements, pass Cabinet resolutions, authorise inadequate impact studies on a big project with big potential impact, without consulting people who will be affected.

The Senate reacted to the issue. But where were the local MPs, the representatives of the people? It's probably significant that the Chiang Rai Chamber of Commerce is very keen on the Mekong Navigation project. Its member like the prospect of more river trade and tourism. One of the fishermen roused against the project said: "I really think these business people are the 'never have enough' people. They might have a 100 million baht now, but they still want another thousand million baht."

Although the project and the process clearly contravened several sections of the constitution (especially section 56, but also 46, 76, and 79), there is no mechanism to activate the constitution in such a situation.

On a technicality, government was able to evade the 1992 Environment Protection Act, carry out a “patently inadequate” impact assessment, and conduct no public hearing. It is time the 1992 Act was amended. Its scope must be widened so it is not so easy to evade. The process for appointing consultants to carry out impact assessments must be taken away from the offices promoting the project and given to an independent body. These assessments must look at the social as well as environmental impacts. Proper public hearings must be part of the process. Some means must be found to make the courts uphold the constitution.

There are few strategies of environmental defence dodgier than relying on General Chavalit.