environment

Air Pollution in Thailand

The sulphur oxide, nitrous oxide and acetic acid emitted from petrochemical plants, oil refineries and plastics and chemical factories in the eastern seaside town of Mab Ta Phut is so bad that people where gas masks to work and suffer from headaches, vomiting, soar throats and other health problems

 The large number of vehicles and other forms of pollution have left Bangkok in a perpetual cloud of rust-colored smog. Black smoke billows out of the back of old buses and tuk tuks. Construction dusts fills the air. On some clear days you can hardly see the blue sky. In the sky there is a gray film where blue should be. Thick hazy smogs are produced when pollutants combine with fog.

 Vehicle emissions are the “greatest source of air pollutants in Bangkok,” according to the United Nations. Adam Janofsky of The Pulitzer Center wrote: “A clear marker” of how bad the air pollution is “is the prevalence of asthma in Bangkok, which has reached 15 to 20 percent in the past two decades—up from 5 percent in the 1980s. Critically high levels of chemicals like benzene from car exhaust also pose a risk for heart disease and cancer. Pedestrians and motorcyclists on every street can be seen wearing breathing masks to reduce the risks of auto pollution. [Source: Adam Janofsky, The Pulitzer Center, August 14, 2012]

 Bangkok policeman wear strips of cloth protecting their nose from pollution and carry oxygen bottles. In 1995, a policeman reportedly collapsed and died from breathing in noxious fumes. According to a World Bank study, pollution costs Bangkok $2 billion a year. Another study has shown that more than one million people in Bangkok suffer from allergies and upper respiratory illnesses, many caused by high level of dust in the air, much of it generated by construction projects.

 Cities with the worst air pollution in the 1990s: 1) Mexico City; 2) Jakarta; 3) Los Angeles; 4) São Paulo; 5) Cairo; 6) Moscow; 7) Bangkok; 8) Buenos Aires; 9) Karachi; 10) Manila; 11) Rio de Janeiro. Levels of particles of smoke in Asian cities (micrograms per cubic meter from 1987 to 1990): Calcutta (400); Beijing (380); Jakarta (280); Hong Kong (120); Bangkok (100); Manila (95); Tokyo (50). New York (60).

 In an article on the gridlock traffic in Bangkok, Time correspondent Hannah Beach wrote: “The one thing that has gotten better is air quality. Even a decade ago, working as a Bangkok traffic cop was considered hazardous because of the constant inhalation of exhaust fumes. Since then, the city has cleaned up. The amount of harmful small particulates in the air has decreased nearly 50 percent, in part because of a campaign to switch cars and buses from diesel to natural gas. That doesn't mean that the streets are pristine: only seven of the 60 so-called green roads in Bangkok were found to have safe air, according to a survey last year by the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration..[Source: Hannah Beach, Time, February 8, 2008]

Water Pollution

 Many of Bangkok’s klongs (canals) are foul and dirty. Some are filled with black oily water. Others are stagnant pools covered by smelly green scum and filled with garbage. Millions of liters of industrial waste is released into Thai waterways every year. By one estimate over 1.26 million tons of toxic waste is dumped into Thailand's waterways each year, most it untreated. A large number of arsenic-tainted water wells have been discovered in Thailand.

 Hundreds of Karen villagers in Klity Lang, a village in northwest Thailand, have been sickened by drinking water contaminated with waste water discharged by lead mining company located in a Thung Yai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary. The mine and the cleaning plant used to process ore were closed in 1998 but villagers are still affected. Environmental groups are trying to get money to pay compensation to victims of the pollution that has included children born mentally retarded, two girls born with abnormally large heads and no vaginas and people that died of kidney failure linked to lead poisoning.

 In some coastal areas biodiversity and marine life numbers have been greatly diminished by overfishing and pollutants released from shrimp farms and in agricultural run off. Sewage released by hotels and developed tourism areas was a particular problem in Pattaya until it was fairly recently cleaned up. Problems posed by tourism to the marine environment include illegally harvesting seasheell,s dumping of rubbish into the sea ad anchoring tour boats on coral reefs. Discarded plastic bottles are a common sight on Thailand’s beaches. There is a lot of damage on coral reefs in Southeast Asia.

 Greenpeace has issued a warning on the consumption of seafood from the Gulf of Thailand, saying rain water and sediment there contains high levels of seven “very toxic” chemicals. A study by the environmental group found that fish and seafood harvested 25 kilometers offshore south of Bangkok was “heavily contaminated with toxic chemicals released by industrial estates and factories.”

 For a while there were worries about outbreaks of water-borne diseases in Pattaya as a result of large amounts of raw sewage dumped into the sea water but that problem was largely fixed with a $60 million clean water project and the fining of hotels and other businesses that dumped sewage.

 See Shrimp Farming.

Thai Oil Spill Blackens Koh Samet Beach

 Reporting from Koh Samet, Thailand, Andrew Stevens of CNN wrote: :A picture postcard beach on one of Thailand's most popular tourist islands is now the focus of frantic efforts to staunch a tide of oil sweeping ashore. Where pleasure seekers would normally relax on pristine white sand, sandwiched between two lush green headlands, now white-coated cleanup crew smeared with crude suck oil from the shallow waters. Gobbets of oil lie along the beach, a thin sheen covers much of the wet sand and oil-drenched booms lie like giant black snakes along the shoreline. The sea is a rust red color and the odor of fuel hangs heavy in the air. Not even a brisk onshore wind can keep the smell away. [Source: Andrew Stevens, CNN, August 1, 2013]

 For the past four days crude has been washing up here and cleanup crews have been dealing with it the best way they can -- pumping it into holding tanks, containing it with booms, even mopping it up with absorbent pads. Ao Prao beach on the island of Koh Samet is the main impact zone of the 50,000 liters of oil (around 13,200 gallons) spilled during a faulty transfer operation between a tanker and a seabed pipeline. About 600 soldiers, volunteers and workers from PTT Global Chemical, the partially state-owned oil giant that has claimed responsibility for the spill, are involved in the cleanup.

 A PTT spokesman says that 70 percent of the oil has been dealt with. The remaining crude will be "90 percent clear” with a couple days. In some ways Thailand has been lucky. There are more than 200 oil installations in the Gulf of Thailand, which co-exist uneasily in an area known as the marine bread basket of the country. This spill appears to have been contained to one -- more remote -- beach on the island. The more popular resort areas a few kilometers further south say there is little evidence of the spill.

 That's not stopping the tourists leaving though. Resort operators say many have left, fearing their holiday will be ruined. But this is low season here with occupancy around 30 percent. The economic damage would have been far worse a few months from now when most tourists visit, many from the capital Bangkok, 230 kilometers to the northwest. Local fisherman say they've caught fewer fish over the last few days, but it's too early to estimate the damage to fish stocks. There are no signs of affected marine or bird life at Ao Prao.

 A PTT spokesman told CNN that the leak on Saturday happened as a tanker was transferring crude to an undersea pipe. A giant flexible rubber hose used to transport the oil began to leak. The hose is replaced every two years. This one had been in operation for just one year. PTT is also defending accusations that it has underplayed the amount of oil that leaked. According to academics at two universities, satellite pictures of the spill, and the amount of dispersants used suggests it could have been twice as big -- 100,000 liters or about 26,000 gallons.