Egat chief says dams 'not to blame'

Cause was 'heavy rain, not mismanagement'

Unusually heavy rains, not dam mismanagement, was the main factor behind the severity of this year's floods, says Sutat Patmasiriwan, the governor of the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat).

If not for the country's northern dams, the floodwater inundating much of the country would be three times greater than now, he said.

Egat, together with the Royal Irrigation Department, are the two agencies responsible for managing the country's dams and the water discharges into the nation's irrigation network.

At the start of the line are the Royal Irrigation Department and the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (Egat), the two agencies responsible for managing the country's dams.

Crisis response: Leadership failure

Many pundits, such as Smith Dharmasarojana, the chairman of the National Disaster Warning Council, have been scathing in their criticism that water levels in the Bhumibol Dam on the Ping River and the Sirikit Dam along the Nan River, were held way too high for the start of the monsoon season.

The critical period was in July, when water levels began to rise sharply and the focus of the country and bureaucracy was on the general elections and formation of the new Pheu Thai-led government. But Mr Sutat says it is unfair to drag the agency into political mudslinging over the cause of the floods, which he pinned on the abnormally heavy rains this year.

"The country is in the middle of a serious natural crisis. Rather than accuse each other, we should be cooperating to solve the problems," he said.

Mr Sutat said the popular belief that water releases by the upper northern dams contributed to the floods was wrong.

Just the opposite, he said if not for the two major dams, the Central Plains would be inundated by over 30 billion cubic meters of water, or two to three times the amount today.

The Irrigation Department says that over the first 10 months of the year, 11.488 billion cubic meters of water were collected at the Bhumibol Dam, with 4.085 billion released downstream.

For the Sirikit Dam, 10.3 billion cubic meters of water were collected with 6.573 billion released.

The Central Plains are now flooded from water running from five rivers _ the Ping, the Wang, the Yom, the Chao Phraya and the Sakae Krang rivers.

The Bhumibol and Sirikit dams, which supply 20% of the water used for irrigation in the central provinces, were running relatively low at just 45% to 50% capacity from the end of 2010 to this past May due to drought.

When tropical storm Haima hit in June, the country's free-flowing rivers, including the Sakae Krang, the Yom and the Wang, all burst their banks and caused flooding in Phitsanulok, Sukhothai, Phichit and Nakhon Sawan.

Both the Bhumibol Dam, with a capacity of 13.46 billion cu m, and the Sirikit Dam with 9.51 billion cu m, halted water discharges during the period.

From the end of July through to last month, four more major storms hit the country, leading to nearly all of the country's dams reaching full capacity, including the Bhumibol and Sirikit dams.

Egat was forced to open spillways for the Sirikit Dam from the end of August until early September, while spillways at the Bhumibol Dam opened last month.

"Over the past 30 years, Thailand typically has been hit by two or three major storms a year," Mr Sutat said. "This year, we were hit by five storms, one after another. There was no time for the water to drain into the Gulf of Thailand."

Water outflows from the Sirikit Dam averaged about 40 million cu m per day, and 70 to 150 million cu m at the Bhumibol Dam over a period of 12 to 18 days, he said.