Officials look over a plan
for new, wider drainage pipes, for which, evidently, Pattaya coffers
don’t have the funds.
Surasak Huasoon
After discovering that their newly installed pumps weren’t going
to solve Beach Road’s chronic flooding problem, Pattaya officials were
told they should install new, wider drainage pipes at three beachfront
locations.
Thanawat Jarupongsakul of the Chulalongkorn University Department of
Geology, which has been the consultant to the city on the Pattaya Beach
refill project, told Deputy Mayor Verawat Khakhay and officials from the
Marine and Engineering department that, instead of pumps at three places
along Beach Road, the city needs bigger pipes.
Thanawat said a 1.25-kilometer pipe, two meters wide, was needed running
from the sea at Soi 6/1, the current site of four ineffective pumps. A
200-meter-long pipe should be installed at the Dusit Curve to connect
with the existing drainage network, and a 47-meter connecting pipe at
Walking Street, the site of another pump, he said.
The pipe projects were called a permanent solution to Pattaya’s
beachfront flooding problem, but will require a large, currently
unavailable, budget to fund them. Thanawat estimated total cost at 190
million baht.
