Bangkok is removing about 400 public drinking water fountains

The days when Bangkok had water flowing through the city like, well, water, are coming to an end as the city plans to demolish about 400 public drinking fountains. The initiative to remove the public pedestal drinking fountains has deemed the move necessary because of a variety of factors that make them more of a nuisance than a public service.

The Metropolitan Waterworks Authority began demolishing a water fountain on Rama VI Road on November 22 and has since removed the accompanying platform and all of its accessories and then restored the sidewalk to the state it was in before being obstructed with a water fountain.

The Deputy Governor of Bangkok approved of the demolition job and tasked the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration with taking over the project to renovate sidewalks to their best potential and perform maintenance and removal on problem public drinking fountains.

The project to install public pedestal drinking water fountains was initiated by the MWA in 1999 in a partnership with the BMA and the private sector. But now, over 20 years later, many of the water fountains have lacked proper maintenance, deteriorated in condition, been deemed an obstruction of walkways and scenery in the city, or just ruled to have not met the objective that the project started out to achieve.

With that in mind, a decision was made to remove the approximately 400 pedestal water fountains from around the city of Bangkok. Interestingly, there was no mention of the possibility that shared water fountains could be a source of spreading Covid-19 during a pandemic as one reason to remove the fountains.

SOURCE: Nation Thailand