Egat loses Lampang pollution case

Under the court's ruling, Egat would need to pay about Bt3 billion, or an average of Bt246,900, per family plus 7.5 per cent interest, to be charged since the date the lawsuits were filed until the full payment is made.

The court also ordered Egat to cover relocation costs for families and find each of them new farmland that is at least five kilometres away from the plant.

"Egat would need to study the court's ruling in detail and discuss with the state prosecutors and related agencies before making a decision on what actions need to be taken," said Egat's deputy governor Wirat Kanjanapibul, as the agency's spokesman.

He insisted that Egat had implemented programmes to tackle the pollution problems caused by the power plant, complied with the environmental law and helped the local residents.

The villagers have been fighting a legal battle with Egat over five years now. The lawsuits was filed between 2003 and 2005 by 437 residents of Mae Moh's Tambon Na Sak, Ban Dong, Sop Prap, Mae Moh and Muang district's Tambon Phra Baht. They claimed the power plant used low-quality lignite to produce electricity and did not treat the smoke before releasing it.

The court considered the Pollution Control Department's air-quality report from November 1992 to August 1998 that found the level of ambient sulphurdioxide (SO2) in the area at beyond 1,300 microgram per cubic meter for 50 out of the 70 months measured.

According to standards set in July 1995, no more than 1,300 micrograms of SO2 per cubic metre could be allowed. Later the criterion was reduced to less than 780 microgram per cubic metre in all areas. However, emissions in Mae Moh remained higher than 780 microgram per cubic metre during the remaining 20 months measured.

These figures helped the court realise that Egat was the source of the pollution, and later the electricity authority admitted that only two of its ten SO2 treatment devices were functioning from August 17-18, 1998, causing 868 villagers to fall ill. The court thus ruled that the release of SO2 was beyond the legal limit and had affected the residents.

In addition, Egat was found to have violated the concession contract's conditions by using land meant for re-forestation to build a golf course. The court ruled that the condition clearly stated that the land be re-forested and that golf courses destroyed wildlife habitat and did not serve as a water source.

The court also ordered Egat to submit an Environmental Impact Assessment report to the Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning.

There were some 300 Mae Moh residents present at the verdict reading yesterday morning.

Maliwan Nakwirot, a villager who leads the Network of Patients' Rights Against Mae Moh Toxic Emissions, said the villagers were satisfied, not just about the monetary compensation, but also the fact that justice had finally been served. She also called on the Egat governor to not appeal the case because the amount for the compensation was very small compared to the cost of constructing the golf course.

Meanwhile, Somboon Sikhamdokkae, president of the Council of Work- and Environment-Related Patients' Network of Thailand, submitted a request to Mae Moh district chief Sermsak Seesan to assist the 400 affected families awaiting relocation. Egat is supposed to provide each family with a house and one rai of farmland along with appropriate consumer goods and establish an occupational medicine centre with representatives of the affected.