Lead contamination recovery project at Klity Lang Village, Kanchanaburi Province

Klity Lang, or Lower Klity, is a Karen ethnic village situated in Kanchanaburi within the Thungyai Naresuan Wildlife Sanctuary, Thailand‟s biodiversity hotspot. There is a creek named Klity that runs through Klity Lang before entering Srinagarind Dam, Mae Klong River and finally Chao Phraya River. Klity Creek is valued as the life vein of Klity Lang livelihoods and spirits for a very long time.

Like many Karen, villagers at Klity Lang practice rotational or shifting cultivation. Thus many would not build a permanent house in one specific location but reside in an area for 5-10 years before moving to another location. Shifting cultivation allows the soil, the trees, the grass and the environment to regenerate itself. The only thing that Karen take is seeds--for cultivation in any place they choose to reside. Today, Klity Lang is home to 93 households, totalling 313 villagers. There are more than 73 types of plants being cultivated, mainly rice, chilli, green onions and pumpkins.

In 1967, Lead Concentrates Co. established a lead and ore processing facility on top of Klity Creek headwater and released arsenic into the creek. In 1975, villagers started to notice that the creek had turned unusually turbid and fetid. Many villagers who used water from the creek became ill and eventually passed away without cause. In 1998, photos of lead contamination at Klity Creek and its impacts appeared to the wider public and become a hot news. Responsible government agencies stepped forward but only to put signs labeling the area „too toxic.‟ Provincial public health department also placed a sign prohibiting locals to eat aquatic lives or use the water from the creek. But there was no real effort to clean up the creek. In 2003, Klity Lang villagers decided to take action and bring their case to court. Ten years later, the Thai Supreme Administrative Court ordered Pollution Control Department (PC) to compensate the villagers and clean up the creek.

For the cleanup plan, PCD commissioned Khon Kaen University to conduct a survey and design a cleanup framework. The survey proposed 5 plans for the cleanup:

Cleanup plan for Klity Creek at the ore processing facility and its vicinity
Environmental quality monitoring plan
Health plan
Socioeconomics plan
Monitoring and evaluation plan

The cleanup plan is divided into 7 periods: Close monitoring during Period 1 and 7, lead removal during Period 2 and 6, building two additional dykes to trap the contaminated sediments during Period 3 and 4

On 10 January 2016, three years after the Supreme Administrative Court order, PCD just finished outlining the cleanup plan and in the process of obtaining permit from the Forestry Department and National Park, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department (DNP) to implement the plan. PCD had neither signed terms of references (TOR) with a company to implement the cleanup. On the other hand, Klity Lang community used the compensated judgment and donations from its fundraising project to build a village water system to bring clean and safe water their community.

Klity Lang villagers also planned to engage themselves in the recovery project. To prepare themselves, they conduct Community Health Impact Assessment (CHIA) to expecting that their effort would lead to the creation of environmental and health impact monitoring system.

Key objective of this CHIA was to facilitate a community-led learning process in developing its own health impact monitoring system. The community learned how to research and record stories of their lives and their livelihoods. They recorded how they use the creek and the values of natural resources in the area. CHIA also connected indigenous knowledge with expert knowledge to draw out villagers‟ health conditions at present. The experts also shared with the community about lead and its toxicity, ways of receiving lead poisoning and potential risks during the recovery process. This knowledge was important to strengthen community‟s capability to engage with the government agencies during the monitoring and evaluation process and making proposals to ensure effective prevention and mitigation efforts during the recovery process.

Much of the work was done by the community. First, it set up a core team and held a brainstorm meeting to design a participatory research plan. The first set of data was done in a form of a community map. The map started with Klity Creek and its tributaries and followed by locations of each house and cultivation areas. The map also included types of cultivated plants, where and how villagers use the creeks. On the next day, as it was a buddhist day and the majority of the villagers would be present, the map was taken to the monastery a review by villagers. Villagers were also encouraged to add more information as well. After that, the core team took the map to every household so everyone could put in their own stories. Simultaneously, it was also a great way to survey the village demography. The map was then displayed at the school for another review by villagers as many of them had to take their children to school. The map was later sent to a graphic team to digitize the map.

Klity Lang children and youth presented the digitized map at the community youth camp and engage their friends to add their activity areas such as: where they like to go swimming, diving, catching fish, washing their clothes, cleaning themselves, or washing dishes. The final review was done by the community at the end of Vassa (Pavarana Day). At last, the map showing where and how Klity Lang uses Klity Creek and its tributaries was finally completed.

The community map revealed a very surprising fact: every household directly uses the creeks for drinking, cooking, washing dishes, washing clothes, cleaning. They also eat aquatic animals in the creeks and use the water for irrigation.

In the next step, the community core team consulted experts on their map and compared it with PCD‟s cleanup plan. The meeting was held at Social Research Institute of Chulalong University. After overlaying PCD‟s cleanup plan on the map, the result showed that PCD‟s plan did not cover all the areas the community uses. In other word, the community was still at risk.

Next, the community created a community genogram and an epidemiological map to assess villagers‟ health risks. At first, the team hoped that after the completion of their map, they would acquire each villager‟s blood test result from the Provincial Department of Public Health and placed it on the map. However, after visiting villagers at their houses, they found that no one knew his or her health condition or lead level in their body. No one knew the blood test results. No one remembered when he or she had the last checkup. Many were unaware of toxicity of lead, how they would get lead poisoning, the signs or the symptoms. As a result, the team adjusted their plan. Instead of showing lead level in the villagers‟ bodies, the epidemiological map would show the villagers‟ awareness of their own bodies‟ lead toxicity. This map became an important baseline data for the community to later collaborated with the public health sector in designing a media outreach on risks of lead poisoning and how villagers could self-check health impacts of lead contamination in Klity Creek. The methodology for the epidemiological map was similar to the community land use mapping: the core team visited each household to do the survey and to engage everyone in the process. In addition, as lead poisoning can be transferred from the mother to the fetus during pregnancy, the community also created a community genogram to assess the health risks.

On 16 December 2015, Klity Lang presented their study--the study that they have been working on wholeheartedly--to the government agencies at a public forum by Thida Doi Waterfalls in their village. Thai PBS recorded the forum. During the forum, PCD stated it would use the community map to review the lead removal site and the environmental quality monitoring system. The Public Health Department agreed to share the blood test results and included them on the epidemiological map and community genogram. It hoped to work with Klity Lang to develop a health impact monitoring system as requested by the community.

At present, PCD and Department of Disease Control had included the community-led study to improve their works and to create a joint collaboration mechanism between the community and the government agencies.