Pattaya officials are again predicting that construction of Pattaya’s second wastewater-treatment plant in Jomtien Beach soon will be finished, more than two years late.
Originally estimated to cost 500 million baht, the plant on Soi Wat Boonkanjanaram is 95 percent built and half the required equipment has been installed, Deputy Mayor Verawat Khakhay said during a tour of the construction site with water-quality analysis staffers May 12.
Deputy Mayor Verawat Khakhay tours the construction site of Pattaya’s second wastewater-treatment plant in Jomtien Beach.
Launched in 2010, the plant was first slated to be completed in 2012. The new completion date is set for Aug. 4 and Verawat promised fines against the contractor of 1.4 million baht a day if work runs late.
The latest estimate of the project’s cost now stands at 558 million baht. The mayor blamed changes to building plans made by city hall planners and 2011’s national flooding crisis for the delay.
Current plans call for the treatment plant to be lined via underground drainage pipes serving South Pattaya, Thepprasit Road, certain areas of Jomtien from Thepprasit sois 7-9, Soi Jurarat, Sukhumvit Road and the Mae La-Or Market.
The Market has sat at the center of the problem, as drainage systems on either side of the area did not connect. Hence water backed up and flooded neighborhoods. On May 14, workers began laying connecting pipes around and through the market. The work is expected to continue through mid-June. The mayor warned motorists in the area to expect traffic problems caused by the construction.
“Once we complete the wastewater treatment plant, it will become an amazing collection point that will drain water from neighborhoods that now experience flooding during the rainy season,” Verawat said.
