City Defends Boeng Kak Project, Attacks Critics

The filling of Boeng Kak lake and the eviction of thousands of residents was necessary to root out the “prostitutes and terrorists” that were drawn to the area’s once-popular tourist zone, the Phnom Penh Municipality said in a statement yesterday.

In a statement posted to its website, the municipality listed legal, social, economic and environmental “aspects” to argue that city officials had no choice but to fill in the lake and hand it over to Shukaku Inc. – the private firm owned by CPP Senator Lao Meng Khin.

“Because there was an uncontrollable mixed renting by all kinds of people, this area turned to be an insecure place, shelter for criminals, gangsters, drug dealers, prostitutes and terrorists,” the municipality said.

Boeng Kak had, as a result, suffered from a “disappearance of national customs, traditions and Khmer culture.” …

The municipality also accused the area’s former residents, thousands of whom were evicted under duress, of having encroached on state land by building homes over the water. And while many of the evicted families complain of financial hardship since their eviction, the municipality said that the poor, dirty and cramped conditions at Boeng Kak gave residents no chance to make better lives for themselves. The statement also controversially claims that the 104-hectare lake played no role in the city’s natural drainage of rainwater, rendering it wholly expendable in terms of flood management in Phnom Penh.

To make the case, the municipality cites an undated French study that found Boeng Kak played no part in the city’s drainage and another decade-old study by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) that simply makes no mention of the lake.

The municipality, however, failed to include more recent evidence showing that Boeng Kak in fact has a key role in absorbing seasonal rains, including an independent 2008 study by Australian hydrologists who called the anticipated flooding from the filling of Boeng Kak lake “unacceptable,” and urged the government to reconsider.

Last month, the country’s preeminent architect, Vann Molyvann, also weighed in, calling the lake’s disappearance “dangerous” for water drainage management in the capital. Mr. Molyvann said studies urging the government to not fill in the lake were actually around since the early 1990s. Seng Solady, a program officer for JICA, which has spent tens of millions of dollars on alleviating flooding in city streets, also said last month that multiple studies pointed to the benefits of preserving Boeng Kak. …