• 
• 

Published on August 15, 2007

Petcharin Sriwattanakul of the National Institute of Cancer said she listened to news about the Onep decision with sorrow.

"I won't do anything from now on. It seems the government just used me and my research to pretend that it was concerned about the residents and the environment," said the  retired scientist.

Petcharin conducted research from 1997-2001, recording very high rates of cancer, particularly leukaemia, in Map Ta Phut. She found that seven in every 100,000 people had leukaemia, which is two to three times higher than average.

The results of her research caused governments to pay greater attention to the concerns of residents in 25 communities living within the Map Tha Phut petrochemical industrial complex, which comprises five estates.

Early this year she was asked by the institute to continue with phase two of her study to update the statistics. She also planned to conduct molecular research on 500 blood samples collected in 1998 which, from her research, showed some irregularities.  

"All I have done and planned to do is for the sake of the residents who live in this polluted environment," she said.

Environmentalists and residents used her findings as evidence to support their demand that the National Environmental Board (NEB) declare Map Tha Phut a Pollution Control Zone - which means the government would have to accept that pollution discharged from the estate's factories exceeded safety levels.

This would in turn lead to a freeze on expansion of the industrial complex.  

Though the NEB did not declare Map Tha Phut a Pollution Control Zone, it ordered the Industrial Estates Authority of Thailand to control the pollution and reduce levels of all volatile organic compounds (VOCs) including cancer-causing agents in the contaminated air.

The Pollution Control Department recently came up with numbers suggesting that the air quality of Map Tha Phut was improving and the level of VOCs was decreasing.

Then the Onep gave the nod for more gas-separation plants, oil refineries and 19 petrochemical plants to be built on the estate.

Moreover, there were signals that phase three of the country's petroleum industry development project would be also be situated in Map Tha Phut.

Suraphan Klinkajorn, of Rayong provincial city planning division, said some 20,000 rai of land north of Map Tha Phut was converted by the Interior Ministry in 2003 from "green", which means a community zone, to "purple", which represents industrial zones.  

"We have objected to the conversion many times, but failed," he said.

Suraphan said he wished the central government would respect the city planning drawn up by the provincial authorities.