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Published on August 5, 2007

Payap Wongpirodom, deputy governor for fuel business at the state enterprise, said 43 rai had been excavated two years ago, leaving only 18 rai of the area untouched that the court wanted preserved as a natural heritage site. He said the Cabinet resolution of December 21, 2004 had reduced the size of protected area from 52 rai to 18 rai.

The court had ordered Egat to keep off all 52 rai and the Fine Arts Department to register the entire area where the 13-million-year-old fossils were found as a historic site within 180 days.

Energy Minister Piyasawasdi Ammaranan was upset with Egat during his field trip to the fossil site yesterday, saying Egat should not have bypassed bureaucratic procedures by not consulting with the Fine Arts Department.

He ordered Egat to report to him on the damage to the fossil area. Lignite from the mine fuels Egat's Mae Moh coal-fired power plant.

The 300-metre-long, 230m-wide and 12m-deep "cemetery" of petrified freshwater snails is the only one of its kind in the world. Two similar deposits in Austria and Australia, both registered as World Heritage Sites, contain sea-mollusc remains.