City still unable to find enough suitable sand
Reconstruction of Pattaya Beach has been postponed indefinitely after the city again was unable to procure sand to refill and expand the shoreline.
Deputy Mayor Verawat Khakhay said Sept. 3 that the 429.1 million baht project to build up and widen Pattaya Beach to counter years of erosion was supposed to have been completed in December, but has not even started due to the inability to find 400,000 cu. meters of sand that matches that currently on Pattaya Beach.
The city originally had planned to bring sand from a Rayong estuary to an offshore barge in Pattaya, then use smaller equipment to bring the sand to shore and refill the beach and install supporting frames and breakwaters starting from the Dusit Curve southward.
Reconstruction of Pattaya Beach has been postponed indefinitely after the city again was unable to procure sand to refill and expand the shoreline.
Objections from Rayong provincial officials resulted in Pattaya not being able to obtain enough sand from that source, so it chose a section off of Koh Khram as a new source. However, that sand was found to not match Pattaya’s own sand well enough and now a new source is needed.
Verawat said the Royal Thai Navy also has objected to removing sand from the island it controls, the region’s main breeding ground for endangered Green and Hawksbill sea turtles.
The sand-shortage issue is not new. Verawat first informed the media about the problem in April, but pledged that a new source would be found by May. Four months later, however, a new source still hasn’t been found.
In the interim, work on installation of three new, larger drainage pipelines and their connecting pipes is continuing – admittedly at a slower place than planned meaning construction-related traffic jams on Beach Road will continue.
The 192-million-baht pipeline project calls for new outflow pipes to be installed under Beach Road near the mouth of Walking Street, Soi 6/1 and at a North Pattaya location near the Dusit Curve.
The South Pattaya pipeline is three meters in diameter and 47 meters long. The Soi 6/1 pipe is 2 meters in diameter and runs 1.3 kilometers east from the shoreline, and the third pipe is 1.5 meters in diameter.
Work has hit delays, particularly at Soi 6/1, as contractors ran into the obstacle of underground communication wires and power cables.
Verawat said, however, that the work is continuing with completion anticipated in December.
