Four-party panel to focus on serious-impact list today

Project owners for activities appearing on the final list will be compelled to complete a health-impact assessment (HIA) before their projects can proceed.

The panel's focus is on two different versions: one produced by the Industry Ministry, which in September announced a list of eight activities, and the other proposed by Thongchai Phansawat, an engineer and senior pollution expert who is an adviser to the Natural Resources and Environment Ministry. His list contains 19 damaging activities.

Appearing on the Industry Ministry's list are upstream and downstream petrochemical plants; nuclear power plants; underground mining; lead and zinc mines; chemical-based mineral dissolving and upstream steel production with a daily minimum capacity of 20,000 tonnes; industrial estates for upstream steel production or upstream to midstream petrochemical plants; dumping sites and kilns for hazardous waste; and fossil-fuel power plants (except gas-fired plants) with a minimum capacity of 100 megawatts.

On Thongchai's list, which was well received at four public hearings around the country, are:

1. Activities at first-class watersheds, forest reserve areas, World Heritage sites and historical sites.

2. Land or lake reclamation, excluding projects to revive beach conditions.

3. Construction of sea wave barriers.

4. Underground mining.

5. All metal-mining activities.

6. Industrial parks or industrial zones that house petrochemical plants with a capacity of more than 100 tonnes per day, or metal-smelting plants of 50-tonnes daily capacity.

7. Upstream and midstream petrochemical plants of all sizes.

8. Steel or metal-smelting plants with a daily capacity of more than 50 tonnes.

9. Radioactive production, destruction or adaptation.

10. Kilns or recycling plants for hazardous industrial waste.

11. Airports and runway expansion.

12. Piers able to handle vessels with more than 500-gross-tonnage capacity, and those handling hazardous goods and waste.

13. Dams and dykes to hold more than 100 million cubic metres of water or cover over 15 square kilometres.

14. Irrigation activities covering more than 80,000 rai.

15. Power plants with over 100MW capacity.

16. Nuclear plants.

17. Water diversion from major sources.

18. GMO-related commercial agricultural projects.

19. Golf courses with more than nine holes.

Civil activists have complained that the Industry Ministry list fails to include all projects with serious impacts on the environment.

However, extending the list to encompass all 19 activities would require some government projects to conduct an HIA.