The industrial sector wants several items excluded from the list of activities that cause environmental, health and community damage.
Bantoon Setthasiroj, spokesman for the fourparty panel tasked with resolving problems at Map Ta Phut Industrial Estate, yesterday named them as golf courses, recycling operations, garbageelimination facilities, cement kilns, genetically modified organisms and certain forms of mining.
"Industry has proposed reduc¬tions in the scale of harmful industrial activities and even withdrawn as many as it could, to facilitate healthimpact assessments [HIAs]," he said.
Bantoon was speaking in Bangkok at the fifth public hearing held on industrial activities that cause severe damage. The hearings, covering 19 activities, began on February 19 in Chiang Mai.
A final list will be submitted to the panel by next Friday.
Bantoon said since the hearings were launched last month, the industrial sector had proposed excluding all types of metal mining from the list.
An HIA subcommittee of the fourparty panel insists all mining be included. The subcommittee said health effects of surface mining included respiratory diseases, especially from the mining of coal, lead and zinc.
However, the industrial sector insists each metal has differences in properties, toxicity, dissolution and production. It has proposed that only lead, zinc and any other mining that makes use of cyanide or other toxic chemical compounds be included on the list.
The subcommittee has also proposed commercial agriculture involving genetically modified organisms be included, because there are no definitive studies showing consumption of such organisms to be safe.
However, the industrial sector disagrees. It believes including genetically modified organisms on the list will cause people to believe they actually have been used in Thailand.
Subcommittee chairman Thongchai Phansawat said he did not expect the list of to be ready on time next Friday, but an annex for other harmful industrial activities that need to be studied will be included.
However, Bantoon said the other panel subcommittee - on environmentalimpact assessments [EIAs] - had found most factories in Map Ta Phut failed to follow EIA guidelines and regulations.
