Polluting Walking Street businesses have begrudgingly agreed to install a new sewage system at their expense.
The 101 operators acquiesced to the city’s demand that they pay a share of the cost to resolve the pollution problem they caused at a Sept. 25 meeting with Wirath Jirasripraitoon of the Pattaya Sanitation Department at a Pattaya School No. 8.
The businesses, cited earlier this year for inadequate or nonexistent sewage management, had been balking at paying for anything because they claimed the investment would be wasted if the government ever enforced its long-standing demolition order for encroaching on public land.
But being as the bars, restaurants and other businesses have stalled any government action for more than 20 years, the owners acknowledged there was no real threat of them being shut down and therefore decided to invest.
Pattaya will pay 31.5 million baht of the cost, while businesses will pick up the tab to install “hanger supports” spaced out about every five buildings. Each support would connect sewage pipes to a pit that can hold up to 1,500 liters of wastewater.
The cost to each business has yet to be determined.
