The heavy equipment has been
brought out to refill sand on 193 meters of beachfront at the Dusit curve.
Warunya Thongrod
Work to offset the erosion of the northern end of Pattaya Beach should
be completed in two months, by April this year, although restoration of the
rest of the beachfront must wait until at least October.
Pattaya Mayor Itthiphol Kunplome said Jan. 25 that the project to refill
sand on 193 meters of beachfront at the Dusit curve has resumed after
officials found a new source of sand in Rayong, from a different river, to
replace the previous supply cut off by Rayong officials from the Rayong
River in September.
The beach refill is the first part of a 500 million baht
proposal to reverse severe erosion of Pattaya Beach, which was predicted to
wipe out the beachfront in five years if nothing was done. Already, the
Dusit curve area had shrunk to as little as 3 meters wide. The refill
project now 70 percent complete aims to expand the beach to 30 meters.
Itthiphol announced plans nearly a year ago to use a Rayong estuary as a
source for sand to refill the Dusit Curve, but local officials there
reversed their earlier approval last fall claiming the river couldn’t afford
to surrender more sand, as nature was already eating away at the waterway.
Debated for more than a year so far, the total beach reclamation project
still lacks necessary funding. Itthiphol predicted the funds would be made
available by the Cabinet in the 2014 fiscal year, which begins in October.
