The Hua Lamphong 'Klong', stagnant and choked with wastes, runs along side the Klong Toey slum area, with inhabitants sometimes living right under the highway.

 

 

   “There are fish and frogs in the water,” she said, then quickly added: “But still, nobody dares to eat them yet because even the fish’ eyes have turned black.”

   Even 20 years ago, the Thai capital was already in its last throes of being called ‘The Venice of the Orient’ -- a title that came from its abundance of waterways snaking through the city -- as many canals were filled up to make way for roads.

   “Before, the klongs were a part of everyone’s lives,” Siriporn said.  “People used the klongs for bathing, washing, drinking and   transportation. But when they were filled up, they slowly disappeared from people’s minds. Now, hardly anybody ever thinks about them anymore.”

   During the 19th century, the klongs were the main mode of transport in Bangkok, feeding into the Chao Phraya River.

   Over the last two generations, hundreds of kilometres of waterways have been filled in to build or widen roads or to make room for housing and commercial buildings. So abandoned were the city’s klongs that today they are waste receptacles for the city’s more than 6 million inhabitants, choked with all kinds of waste. Some news reports say there are but 20-off canals left.

    But in 2001, Siriporn spearheaded a campaign to rehabilitate the Hua Lamphong canal, which passes right behind her community of 300 families, all living in this informal settlement.

    Named ‘A Clean Hua Lamphong Canal Is Essential To Our Community’, the project started with low-key campaigns encouraging people not to throw garbage into the canal. Then, trees were planted beside the canal and bamboo fences were erected to discourage dumping of waste into the water.

   “Every month, we have a community meeting where we discuss and receive feedback about this project,” said Supanee Tiamseeha, 47, the present community leader.

    Children were employed to make brochures and pamphlets regarding ways to clean up the klong. She added, “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.”

   Nevertheless, the project is still far from being completely successful.

   Siriporn said that most of the pollution in the canal comes from surrounding hotels, schools and other establishments. So she sentletters to them and asked for their cooperation to help clean up the Hua Lamphong canal.

   “They sent their representatives to come, but they just listened to us, went back and we never heard anything from them again, while the problem still continues,” Siriporn said.

   Resistance does not only come from outside the community. Supanee said: “It’s also very hard for us to deal with people who don’t want to cooperate with this project.”

   Often, landlords prefer that their space be rented out for profit rather than to give other people easy access to the canal. 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 unfairly taking advantage of the canal and  “making the canal look dirty”.

   Three years ago, water engineer Vichai Poey came up with a possible solution to treat dirty water from the households before this is released into the canal. He was then a young staff at the Chumchon Thai Foundation, a non-government organisation working on canal community development in Bangkok.

   He had special holes built next to the canal where dirty water could be treated by effective microorganisms before being released into the canal. However, the treatment holes now are left unused.

   “It failed because the Klong Toey district often released so much water from the main canal to avoid flooding in the city,” said Siriporn. “As a result, the extra water washed over the holes, killed all the plants on top of them and totally destroyed the project.”

   “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 also others who feel it’s just a waste of time to even care about the dirty canal because even if they try to keep this portion of the canal clean, pollution still comes because people in other places still dump 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 ‘my’ and ‘your’ problem. It’s our problem; it’s everybody’s problem.

   She said that the experience taught her valuable lessons like how to make connections with the local government officials as well as other representatives in the surrounding area. “It really is not hard to do at all,” she claimed. “You can simply start by not throwing rubbish into the klong.”

   “If everybody cooperates, the canal will be completely healthy again in five years,” Siriporn explains. But in the meantime, the water warriors of Hua Lamphong soldier on. (END/AWW/IPSAP/FS/JS/270406)