Investigations of the mass deaths of giant freshwater stingrays last month seemed to have reached a conclusion when tests showed the Rajburi Ethanol factory released industrial wastewater into Mae Klong River “by accident”. The Pollution Control Department has duly filed a lawsuit against the company.
It sounds like a positive ending to a tragic event which killed more than 50 critically endangered stingrays along with countless other creatures in the river as it flowed through Ratchaburi and Samut Songkhram provinces.
However, the reality is somewhat different. Devastating “leaks” of industrial pollutants into our rivers and watercourses will continue for as long as the “leaky taps” of regulation and law enforcement remain unfixed.
The mass death of stingrays is just the tip of a wider pollution crisis in Thailand that is proving one of the biggest and most difficult environmental problems to solve.
Pollution as become an everyday fact of life in urban areas and industrial zones, where residents will often tolerate the low-grade poisoning until the point where it takes a visible toll on their health.
The finger of blame is usually pointed at factories, but the truth is that ordinary citizens can be just as careless with reckless actions that pollute the communities in which they live.
However, in the case of polluting factories, carelessness is compounded by greed. Industrial polluters can reduce operational costs if they ditch expensive treatment processes and dump their waste directly into the environment.
This is where regulators should step in. But in the example of Rajburi Ethanol, local residents and environmental groups had been complaining about the factory’s misdeeds for more than 14 years – in vain. Regulatory agencies were only forced into action when the mass death of endangered stingrays made national headlines.
Cases of destruction of Thai ecosystems by greed and thoughtlessness are in fact too numerous to mention, but the 2013 oil spill in Rayong and the years of lead contamination in Kanchanaburi’s Klity Creek stand out.
Luckily, communities these days have growing awareness of their rights and means to protect themselves, while a core of good and honest civil servants is willing to do the job of regulating greedy business owners.
The legal system, too, offers strong tools to deal with polluters, including the Factory Act and the Enhancement and Conservation of National Environmental Quality Act.
But the sad fact remains that the industrial polluters can usually count on their wealth and connections to fend off the law and punishment. The real power lies with money and influence, not with the law and its enforcers.
At root, this is a cultural problem. Most of us are willing to ignore wrongdoing if it is practised by our friends or if the bribe is high enough. The law is a secondary matter in these calculations.
The solution, however, lies in the hands of the authorities. It is they who are responsible for enforcing the rule of law by holding everyone – no matter how wealthy or influential – to its single d. Our task as citizens meanwhile is to acknowledge the difference between antisocial actions that ultimately damage everyone, and values that make life easier and fairer for all.