Frances Suselo – Asia Water Wire*
BANGKOK, May 5 2006 (IPS) – The water in Hua Lamphong klong (canal) is pitch black. And its stench hangs heavy over the air. Yet, Siriporn Sawasdee insists that the water quality in the canal, which passes through the Klong Toey slum, is better than what it used to be.
There are fish and frogs in the water, she points out. And then adds as quickly: Nobody dares to eat them because the eyes of the fish have turned black.
Just 20 years ago, tourist brochures were claiming for the Thai capital, the appellation, Venice of the Orient , for the abundant waterways that snaked through the city. There was added exoticism in women paddling down the canals in boats laden with fresh vegetables for sale.
But many of those canals have been filled up to make way for roads and floating markets are now little more than a cherished memory except in places like the neighbouring province of Ratchaburi, where they continue to be a tourist attraction.
Before, the klongs were a part of everyone s lives, Siriporn recalled. People used the klongs for bathing, washing, drinking and transport. But when they were filled up, they disappeared from people s minds. Now, hardly anybody remembers them.
During the 19th century, the klongs were the main mode of transport in Bangkok, feeding into the mighty Chao Phraya river, its banks bristling with sprawling palaces and gleaming pagodas.
Over the last two generations, hundreds of kilometers of these waterways, which also served as irrigation canals for farmers, have been filled in to build or widen roads or make room for housing and commercial buildings.
The abandoned klongs soon became waste dumps for the city s six million inhabitants and choked up. Some reports say there are perhaps 20 canals left that are recognizable as waterways.
It was left to individuals like Siriporn to conserve whatever was left. Siriporn began her campaign to rehabilitate the Hua Lamphong canal in 2001 and since then it has been an upstream task convincing her community of some 300 families of the value of keeping the klong clean.
Named A Clean Hua Lamphong Canal Is Essential To Our Community , the project started with low-key campaigns to encourage people not to throw garbage into the canal. Trees were planted along the canal and bamboo fences erected to discourage dumping of waste into the water.
Every month, we hold a community meeting where we discuss and receive feedback about this project, said Supanee Tiamseeha, 47, the present community leader.
Children are employed to make brochures and pamphlets on ways to clean up the klong. We don t use any high-tech machinery to clean the water; we simply put EM (effective microorganisms consisting of lactic acid bacteria, photosynthetic bacteria and yeast) solution into the water, Supanee said.
Nevertheless, the project is still far from being completely successful.
According to Siriporn, most of the pollution in the canal comes from the surrounding hotels, schools and other establishments. So she wrote to them canvassing for cooperation in cleaning up the canal.
They sent their representatives. They just listened to us, went back and we never heard anything from them again, while the problem continues, Siriporn said.
Resistance, she said, came from within the community as well. It s very hard for us to deal with people who don t want to cooperate.
Residents who do not live right next to the canal are not very much concerned with the problem. In fact, Siriporn recalled that when those living next to the canal started to plant water vegetation, others complained that they were making the canal look dirty .
Three years ago, water engineer Vichai Poey came up with what looked like viable solution to treat dirty water from the households before it was released into the canal. He was then a young staff member at the Chumchon Thai Foundation, a non-government organisation (NGO) working on canal community development in Bangkok.
He had special pits dug next to the canal where dirty water could be collected and treated by EM before being released into the canal but the system soon fell into disuse.
It failed because the Klong Toey district often released too much water from the main canal to avoid flooding the city, said Siriporn. As a result, the extra water washed over the pits, killed all the plants and totally destroyed the project.
But more than the failed hydrology, what bothers Siriporn is the indifferent attitude of the residents of Klong Tuey.
Some people do not have the sense that they belong here, she said ruefully. They feel that this isn t their business. Others are simply not informed. Then there are those who think it s a waste of time to care about one portion of the canal clean when people upstream or downstream would continue dumping waste into the water.
With so many obstacles standing in their way, it is a wonder that these two women still trudge on. It s a matter of community pride, Siriporn said. We would like people to understand that the dirty canal is not just a my and your problem. It s our problem; it s everybody s problem.
She said that the experience has taught her valuable lessons like how to contact local government officials and other representatives in the area. It really is not hard to do, she claimed. You can start by simply not throwing rubbish into the klong.
If everybody cooperates, the canal will be completely healthy again in five years, Siriporn says optimistically. In the meantime, the water warriors of Hua Lamphong soldier on. (END/IPS/AP/IP/EN/DV/FS/RDR/06)
(* This story was produced for the Asia Water Wire, a series of features on water and development in the region coordinated by IPS Asia-Pacific.)