Thai farmers fear water woes from planned LNG plant
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Facebook Linkedin Threads Whatsapp Reddit Email Page link Cite article Farmers in Thailand’s Chachoengsao province worry a planned 600-megawatt LNG power plant could increase water shortages and air pollution in an area already facing recurring drought.The project is the latest chapter in an 18-year struggle by local communities, who previously helped stop the same development when it was planned as a coal-fired power station and continue to challenge it on environmental and health grounds.Opponents also question why the plant is needed at all, arguing Thailand already has excess generating capacity and that expanding LNG infrastructure could deepen fossil-fuel dependence while delaying a shift to renewable energy.See All Key Ideas PHANOM SARAKHAM, Thailand — On a December afternoon, Suphut Hom Chunthit and his wife were tending to their 12 durian trees. Suphut showed reporters his homemade irrigation system, a series of pipes carrying water from the nearby Yang Deng canal. The durian trees were in their fourth year, Suphut said, so they should fruit and be ready for harvest later in 2026 — if they survive.
“Last year, we could only water the durian trees for 15 minutes a day,” said Suphut, who also grows cassava, rice, plums, rubber and rambutan in Phanom Sarakham, a district in Thailand’s Chachoengsao province. “It’s barely enough to keep them alive.” Three kilometers, less than 2 miles, down the road from Suphut’s 8-hectare (20-acre) farm sits the 304 Industrial Park (Chachoengsao), home to electronics, automotive and food-processing plants, and a biomass power station. The park is also the site of the planned 600-megawatt Burapa power plant.
But locals like Suphut say they fear the liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility could exacerbate water shortages and air pollution linked to the expansion of industry in Chachoengsao. The Burapa plant will need up to 12,000 cubic meters (424,000 cubic feet) of water daily, per its 2021 environmental impact assessment (EIA) — equivalent to the daily consumption of some 49,000 Chachoengsao residents, as measured by a 2024 study. Meanwhile, Phanom Sarakham district already faces a “medium-high” risk of drought, according to the World Resources Institute’s Aqueduct Water Risk Atlas.
In 2019 and 2020, farmers across Thailand could only look on as one of the worst droughts in recent memory affected some 133,000 hectares (329,000 acres) of farmland, with damage estimated at 9.8 billion baht, roughly $301 million. In Chachoengsao, provincial authorities simply ran out of raw water for farms and factories, according to Kan Thatiyakhun, who leads the Chachoengsao RE-Power Network, a community group opposing the Burapa power project. “[The authorities] had to cut the supply — there just wasn’t enough water,” Kan told Mongabay.
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