Recent blood tests have shown that many local people in the affected areas around the gold mine, including she, have harmful levels of heavy metals in their bloodstream and more and more people are getting sick, Thanyarat said. “Our plea to the authorities to help us relocate from the affected areas of the gold mine pollution was also ignored. A source from Akara Resources was quoted in Manager Online’s report that the company had not complied with these obligations, because such environmental restoration would require large sums of money. The company would like to get an assurance from the government first that they could reopen the Chatree mine before they begin the environmental restoration. “The reason why we have still not proceeded with environmental restoration at Chatree gold mine is because we do not have an official guarantee that we will be allowed to resume mining at the site; we will need to spend billions of baht for the environmental restoration at this scale,” the source said.

Source: The Nation Bangkok May 19, 2019 18:00 UTC