Pattaya Beach is growing in size by the day and so is the city’s challenge in keeping it clean.
About a half-billion baht has been spent to widen Pattaya Beach from four to 35 meters and the results have been spectacular. But almost as soon as the new sand went down, action and inaction by city hall have combined to begin eroding the rebuilt shoreline.
Street flooding continues to wreak havoc with the beach, with city hall worsening the erosion by demolishing parts of sidewalks to let water stream from Beach Road through the sand, pushing both water and sand back out into Pattaya Bay.
The city’s inability to control sewage spills also continues to cause problems, although, for now, the overflows mainly are affecting the unrestored southern end of the beach.
And then there’s the garbage. With the beach now seven times wider, there is exponentially more sand to keep clean. So far, city hall has failed miserably to consistently clean up its shiny new beach.
Beach vendors, residents and tourists all are calling on Pattaya administrators to do better in preserving the restored beach they’ve waited so long for.
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