Features | Environment | Southeast Asia

Southeast Asia’s Toxic Rivers: No Easy Solutions

Scientists warn of a regional disaster If pollution from rare earth and gold mining in Myanmar continues to spread toxins further along the Mekong River.

The Mekong River has turned an abnormal color as a result of dangerous levels of arsenic, lead, mercury, and other toxins. Photo taken at the Golden Triangle in Thailand’s Chiang Rai Province.

Saffron-robed Buddhist monks led a six-day peace march along the banks of the Kok River on June 6 – U.N. World Environment Day. Their goal was to draw attention to the worsening toxic rivers crisis in northern Thailand. 

Pianporn (Pai) Deetes, the director of Rivers and Rights, a Thailand-based foundation dedicated to water security and ecological issues in the Mekong basin, blogged about the march.

“Along the Kok, Sai, Ruak, Mekong, Salween, and Kraburi rivers, communities depend on these waterways for drinking water, fisheries, agriculture, transportation, and cultural identity,” she wrote. “Rivers are not simply part of the landscape here. They are the foundation of life.”

And that “foundation of life” is being poisoned. The plethora of unregulated rare earth and gold mining in Myanmar’s Shan State has caused massive contamination along the transboundary rivers flowing into northern Thailand and thence into the mainstream Mekong River.

Thai Buddhist monks based at Thaton monastery on the contaminated Kok River arrive to a rally after the 68-kilometer Peace March from Thaton to Chiang Rai. Photo by Tom Fawthrop.

“Arsenic contamination carried downstream from rare earth and gold mining sites in Myanmar has now contaminated the river bank sediment,” Dr. Suebsakun Kidnukorn an environmental scientist at Chiang Rai’s Mae Fah Luang University warned, said in an interview. “The PCD [Thailand’s Pollution Control Department] found abnormally high levels on the mainstream Mekong. It entered the food chain with potentially dire consequences for the region.”

Phra Maha Nikhom Mahabhinikkhamano, the assistant abbot of Wat Thaton, led his monks on the 68-kilometer march from Thaton to Chiang Rai. In his address, he urged Thai leaders “to launch a dynamic holistic governmental and diplomatic response and directly confront the transboundary sources of the pollution.”

The Thai prime minister and six other ministers were all invited to the dialogue forum with the Peace March leaders, which was hosted inside the City Hall by the Chiang Rai’s provincial governor. Not one ranking minister attended.

“The ministers did not show up because they don’t care,” Niwat Roykaew, founder of The Mekong School and founder of the Chiang Khong Conservation Movement, told The Diplomat. 

Niwat Roykaew, a veteran leader of Mekong River conservation and founder of the Mekong School of Indigenous Knowledge, at a protest rally demanding action on river pollution. Photo by Tom Fawthrop.

A winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize, Niwat Roykeaw added, “It is a contradiction that the government still promotes tourism and downplays the health risks from water contamination when they know government data collected by their PCD showed it was not safe to use the river.” The Thai PCD website reported very high levels of arsenic embedded in river sediment.

Natural Resources and Environment Minister Suchart Chomklin and PCD Director-General Surin Worakijthamrong both recognized a need to restore public trust, which is why the PCD is seeking an emergency budget to install 18 automated monitoring stations along the Kok, Mekong, and Salween rivers. But it is not a done deal, until the Thai prime minister has approved the budget.

This is no longer just an issue of water quality, according to Chiang Mai University environmental scientist Dr. Wan Wiriya. The big worry now, he explained, is that the arsenic has penetrated the river’s sediment and is part of the food base. Once contaminated, toxins will accumulate and magnify through the food chain. Without stronger monitoring and response the impacts will only worsen ,”he said.

Thai scientist Dr Wan Wiriya, whose independent monitoring exposed the worsening ecological crisis and threat to health and and food security. Photo by Tom Fawthrop.

Wan has been carrying out independent water monitoring and a full spectrum of tests on soil and food crops. He explained the scale of the treat: “Arsenic is a silent slow poison. It accumulates in the human body and can cause long-term health impacts.” 

In a separate interview, his colleague Dr. Suebsakun elaborated: “It is slow action, it is like smoking cigarettes. At first you don’t notice any problem. But bit by bit you get sick and the cumulative effect can end up with cancer.” Epidemiological evidence shows arsenic induces cancers of the skin, lung, liver, and bladder.

Suebsakun claimed that “the Thai authorities’ response is very weak and lacking in transparency.” He added, “with Thailand’s role in food export promotions and marketing as as ‘The World’s Kitchen,’ you would expect Bangkok authorities to invest more effort to protect the food crops and rice exports from the spread of heavy metal contamination.” 

Given the transboundary issues of river contamination along the Mekong, all parties agree that no one country can solve it. The Mekong countries need to cooperate in order to develop solutions. 

Pai Deetes, director of the Rivers and Rights Foundation, commented,” The discovery of heavy metal contamination at levels up to nine times above the danger threshold, should trigger immediate regional action.” 

But instead of strong regional action, there have been only more attempts to downplay or deny the evidence of a regional crisis, including by the Mekong River Commission (MRC).

The MRC has conducted limited testing in Laos. It concluded in its latest report that “arsenic contamination remains localized but requires sustained attention due to its persistence in both water and sediment.”

The MRC officially claims to be a science-based knowledge hub. But Thai scientists were disappointed its report never addressed the wider regional implications posed by the contamination  of river sediment and its likely circulation within the food........

© The Diplomat