Elephant village was recently successful in removing this digger from joining land at Ban Xieng Lom Village. The digger was being used to excavate thousands of tons of sand and gravel from the bed and banks of the Nam Khan River. The effects of continued excavation could have been catastrophic to the village, and other areas downstream, potentially causing the river to speed up and then forming ox-bow lakes, and further bank erosion, destroying fertile arable land. This could have been disastrous to the local farming community.