Officials from a college and other residents located near Suvarnabhumi Airport said yesterday they would sue Airports of Thailand (AOT) for breaking environmental laws.

Kitti Teeraset, rector of King Mongkut Institute of Technology Lat Krabang (KMITL), told a gathering of about 1,000 teachers, students and local residents yesterday that AOT must consider the environmental impacts of the new airport on the surrounding community.

Kitti also called the AOT's decision on Wednesday to put on hold a Bt214-million project to soundproof KMITL's buildings pending a study by the National Institute of Development Administration insincere and an attempt to buy time. After the airport opens, the noise of aircraft taking off and landing will disrupt classes at KMITL, Kitti said.

"It is said that we may have to stop our classes every time an aeroplane flies by. Soon there will be something like 76 flights per hour. Imagine how difficult it will be to educate people in these conditions," he said.

Dismissing a rumour that the college had released balloons into the sky as an aeroplane flew past, Kitti said KMITL was not a criminal organisation. KMITL's protest against AOT will be peaceful, he said, adding that the lawsuit would help clarify the community's stance.

Sonthi Kachawat, a director at the Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning, urged the government to buy surrounding properties that have high Noise Exposure Forecasts (NEF), a criterion for predicting the noise impact of airports. He offered the example of a residence for railway employees that is located in an area with an NEF score of 40-45, which is considered harmful to health.

For areas where the NEF score is 30-35, including the KMITL campus and nearly 30 villages, Sonthi said that if the noise level proved to be 10 decibels higher after the opening than it is now, the government should pay compensation. He said the government could also sponsor efforts to soundproof buildings with materials like double-layer glass or just buy the affected properties.

"Now it's just two weeks until the opening, and the noise-detectors that are supposed to be installed at 13 locations - as required by the environmental impact assessment report - have not been purchased yet," Sonthi said.

The devices are intended to help the airport and AOT gather information on the effect of the noise on residents, he said.

If the government fails to install the devices as planned, then the residents could sue in the Administrative Court, he added.

Kitti said that if their requests remained unanswered, the airport's opponents would hold a bigger protest outside the college on September 28, the official opening day.

KMITL deputy rector Siriwat Bhothivejjakul presented a list of projects that the college wanted completed before the airport opens. The list included a request that the college's 22 buildings in the 30-35 NEF zone receive Bt214-million worth of soundproofing.

The list requests Bt4 million to install lights on college buildings that are taller than 20 storeys, which is above the height limit set by airport safety regulations, he added.

Siriwat said the AOT must also clarify who will be responsible for checking on the noise and quake effects of the new airport to make sure they remain within acceptable limits. The government should also set up a semi-automated air-quality monitoring station, he added.

He also said the airport would attract much more traffic to the area, so he proposed that the road cutting through the university be closed and another road built outside the school to protect teachers and students from ill-intentioned outsiders. He urged the AOT to develop a plan to keep the university and nearby communities in the loop over the next five years or so regarding measures to resolve the environmental impacts.

Sonthi said the level of noise disturbance depended on factors such as flight direction, aeroplane type, flight frequency and time of day. He also said that the flights between 10pm and 7am would be 10 times as disturbing as flights in daytime. He said the airport hoped to have four runways up and running between 2017 and 2020 to boost capacity to 100 million people a year.

Anan Paengnoy

The Nation