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As Mekong Leaders Gather, Public Awaits Answers on Xayaburi Dam

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Save The Mekong 1 May 2012

Phuket, Thailand –As the Mekong River Commission (MRC) member countries gather today for the MRC’s Mekong 2 Rio International Conference on Transboundary River Basin Management, the Save the Mekong coalition has called upon regional governments to immediately address the ambiguities that have been left unanswered with respect to the future of the Xayaburi Dam and other mainstream dams.

On April 20th, the Save the Mekong coalition sent letters to the MRC’s respective Council members and CEO Mr. Hans Guttman asking for clarification on whether the prior consultation process for the Xayaburi Dam remains open and whether approval has been granted to build the Xayaburi Dam. These concerns follow the April 17th announcement by Xayaburi Dam developer Ch. Karnchang that it had signed a $711 million construction contract with the Xayaburi Power Company, and that construction on the dam commenced on March 15, 2012.

“Ch. Karnchang has no right to build this project because no regional agreement has been made,” said Niwat Roykaew, Chair of the Chiang Khong Conservation Group in Thailand. “In December, the four governments agreed to postpone the decision on the dam, in order to carry out a transboundary impact assessment of the Mekong mainstream dams. Thailand and Laos must act decisively and demand a stop to all construction activities.”

The Save the Mekong coalition also expressed concern over reports that the Thai government had signed the Xayaburi Dam’s power purchase agreement and granted permission for state-owned Krung Thai Bank to fund this dam, which appears to be in direct violation with the 1995 Mekong Agreement. The coalition urged Thailand to immediately withdraw all involvement in the dam.

“The MRC’s prior consultation process is not finished, and yet construction is starting. Thailand and Laos are endangering the entire future of the Mekong River Basin,” said Pianporn Deetes, Thailand Campaign Coordinator for International Rivers. “Before regional cooperation becomes jeopardized, it’s time the four countries renew their commitment to work together to protect the Mekong.”

“The Xayaburi Dam is not on the agenda of the Mekong2Rio conference, but will be the elephant in the room,” said Youra Sun, Executive Director of My Village in Cambodia. “Now is the time to spotlight the urgent need for the Mekong governments to chart a clear political path forward on the Xayaburi Dam.”

Tu Dao Trong, a representative of Vietnam Rivers Network said, “If the Mekong governments really want to discuss the future of transboundary cooperation around the Mekong River, they first need to agree on an immediate halt to the Xayaburi Dam while further studies are underway. We hope this conference becomes an opportunity for real dialogue.”

The Save the Mekong coalition’s April 20th letter stated that “scientific evidence to date overwhelmingly supports our position that these dams will cause significant and irreparable damage to the Mekong River and the people who depend on it.” The coalition has called upon regional governments to work together to protect the Mekong River as the river is central to the lives, ecology, and cultures of the region.

The Save the Mekong coalition fully supports the actions of Thai villagers from the Mekong region, who have traveled to Phuket and will be presenting a petition to the MRC member governments this morning to raise awareness about the Xayaburi Dam and call for its cancellation.

Mekong 2 Rio is considered a key regional event in the run-up to the United Nations’ Rio+20 Summit on Sustainable Development that world leaders will attend in Brazil in June. The Xayaburi Dam has become one of the most controversial sustainable development issues in Southeast Asia.

Contacts:
Dr. Tu Dao Trong, Representative of Vietnam Rivers Network. T: +84 913 236 542, E: [email protected]
Ms. Pianporn Deetes, Thailand Campaign Coordinator, International Rivers. T: +66 81 422 0111, E: [email protected]
Mr. Niwat Roykaew, Chair of the Chiang Khong Conservation Group in Thailand. T: +66 89 955 7890, E: [email protected]
Mr. Sun Youra, Executive Director, My Village, Cambodia, T: +855 16 590 111, E: [email protected]

Portland State University researchers expose environmental costs of building Mekong River dams

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Scott Learn for The Oregonian

When Robert Costanza and colleagues traveled to Laos earlier this year, the decision to build the lower Mekong River’s first mainstream dam seemed close to done.

Then the researchers, most from the Northwest, pointed out the poor history of predicting environmental and social damage from big hydropower dams. Their study (check out interesting comments here-MouthtoSource) also put new dollar signs on the potential cost to the environment and traditional fisheries — figuring the net economic impact of a string of electricity-producing dams could range from a gain of $33 billion to a loss of $274 billion.

“There’s a pretty high probability that things are not going to go the way they had planned, given the history of dam projects worldwide and in the Pacific Northwest,” says Costanza, the study’s lead author and a sustainability professor at Portland State University. “All the evidence pointed toward their assumptions being highly optimistic.”

Last week, the Mekong River Commission recommended Laos postpone dam building, citing the need for further study of the “sustainable development and management of the Mekong River.”

Costanza’s study highlights the biological importance of the Mekong, painfully familiar to Americans during the Vietnam War. It also shows how PSU is brokering its sustainability reputation worldwide, with contributions from Costanza and other researchers at its Institute for Sustainable Solutions.

Costanza, 61, got the shoulder tap for the study late last year from U.S. Agency for International Development. After years of discussion, the foreign aid agency wanted a new look at costs and benefits of Mekong dams, which would affect Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

Costanza, who arrived at PSU last fall, was a logical choice. In 1997, he helped advance the notion of valuing the world’s environmental capital when he co-authored a study published in the journal Nature that pegged the value of global “ecosystem services” at $33 trillion a year, more than the world’s gross domestic product at the time.

In general, Costanza says, economists have downplayed the importance of maintaining the environment — say a wetland that helps with flood control, or a free-flowing river that supports indigenous fisheries and delivers nutrient-laden sediment to rice fields.
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“If you’re not making the environmental costs explicit, you could make the wrong decisions,” he says. “You don’t understand what you’re trading off.”

The Xayaburi dam, the first of up to 11 proposed for the lower Mekong, would be built in Laos, with power going primarily to Thailand.

The researchers traveled to Thailand and to Vientiane, Laos, last February, returning to Thailand in March and June. In Vientiane, they saw fishermen casting nets, people picking rice in fields fed by side channels, children crossing the river, low at the time, to get to sandbars for pickup soccer games. Fish make up about 70 percent of the protein intake in the region.

“It was pretty amazing,” says Ida Kubiszewski, an assistant professor at Portland State. “From young to old, life revolves around the river.”

Hydropower dams would provide badly needed revenue to Laos. The initial dam would have about the same electric-generating capacity as Bonneville Dam, the first of 14 federal dams in the Columbia and Snake river system.

China has built dams on the upper Mekong, and leaders in Laos consider dam building “an opportunity to become a power generation hub,” says Shpresa Halimi,a member of the study team and an assistant professor at PSU. “They’re also looking at it as a way to combat chronic poverty.”

Even with more realistic estimates of environmental and social costs, Laos would still come out ahead, the study concluded. But Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia could all lose, with foregone fisheries and altered wetlands a big part of the tab.

Proponents say passage facilities at the dams to help migratory fish — including the endangered giant catfish — can minimize damage, and aquaculture can compensate for lost fisheries.

That had a familiar ring to Peter Paquet, wildlife and resident fish manager for the Northwest Power and Conservation Council. Paquet, who was among the study group, has seen hundreds of millions devoted to correct problems with fish passage at Columbia dams. Performance of the Columbia’s aquaculture system, otherwise known as hatcheries, has also fallen short of predictions.

“You can’t go into a place like that and say, ‘Don’t do this,’ because they can turn around and rightly say, ‘Look what you’ve done,’” Paquet says. “We were trying to say, don’t make the mistakes that we’ve made, because fixing these things after the fact is hugely expensive.”

The Mekong hosts some 1,200 fish species, far more than the Columbia, Paquet says. Many are migratory, and none can jump up fish ladders at dams the way salmon and steelhead can.

Laos could still build the dam — the river commission’s opinions are just advisory. Costanza said he hopes the country’s leaders agree to delay the decision and study other carbon-free power, such as wind and solar.

Dam developers could be required to post bonds to cover a worst-case scenario, an incentive to keep environmental effects low. Or other countries in the region and international groups could pay Laos for foregoing the benefits of dam construction.

Costanza says the poor, particularly in fishing villages, could bear the brunt of unexpected damage.

“There’s always uncertainty,” he says. “The real question is who bears the burden. The way it’s setting up now, it’s the public that will pay.”

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Mekong dam reprieve

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Milton Osbourne for The Lowy Interpreter

At a meeting of the Council of the Mekong River Commission (MRC) in Siem Reap, Cambodia, yesterday the issue of whether or not Laos should be able to go ahead with its plan to build a major dam on the Mekong at Xayaburi was fudged, with the council members concluding that ‘there is a need for further study on the sustainable development and management of the Mekong River including impact from mainstream hydropower development projects’.

In effect, this means construction of the Xayaburi dam has been postponed for the moment.

The anodyne official statement glosses over the sharp divisions that have emerged and continue among the four member states of the MRC (Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam) on the proposed Xayaburi dam.

It is the first of many dams proposed for the Mekong after it flows out of China. With much preliminary work already completed, it is poised for construction work to begin across the river.

As planned, Xayaburi is no minor, ‘run-of-the-river’ dam. If built it would stretch 830m across the Mekong and rise to a height of 40m. Its reservoir would stretch back 60km (see my earlier post on the dam and the more detailed Lowy Paper, The Mekong: River Under Threat).

According to environmentalists, civil society groups and, most importantly, the governments of Cambodia and Vietnam, the Xayaburi dam is a ‘game changer’. Thailand has taken a hands-off position, not opposing the dam but saying it would hold Laos responsible if the dam caused problems in the future.

The concern has been, and will remain, that if Laos does ahead with Xayaburi it will only be a matter of time before other dams are built on the Mekong in Laos and Cambodia. The attraction of building dams that would generate hydroelectricity that could be sold for foreign exchange would be hard to resist. And if one is built, why not others?

There is almost universal agreement that if the Xayaburi dam is built it would serious negative effects on fish stocks, by blocking fish migration and by distorting the flow of water and sediment down the river, to the detriment of Cambodia and Vietnam. Yet Laos has seemed prepared to ignore the concerns of the critics, including its MRC partners. Most surprisingly of all, Laos seemed ready to incur the wrath of Vietnam, its long-term ally.

Whether this reflects the role China now plays as a supporter and donor is at the very least an open question. Just how long this Perils of Pauline-type saga will continue is impossible to predict, but what is clear is that, when it comes to dams on the Mekong, it is hard to make any judgments that do not take into account national self-interest.

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Dam controversy: Remaking the Mekong

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Gayathri Vaidyanathan for Nature

Scientists are hoping to stall plans to erect a string of dams along the Mekong River.

This summer, a crew of strangers arrived in the tiny village of Pak Lan along the Mekong River in northern Laos. They sat around in shorts, examining technical drawings, and then surveyed the area, measuring the height of the riverbank, the size of the rice paddies and even the number of pigs.

The tally is necessary because Pak Lan may soon disappear. The government will need to move it and 18 nearby villages, because they will be partially or fully submerged if a highly controversial dam, called the Xayaburi, is built. The US$3.5-billion project will create a 60-kilometre-long reservoir and generate 1260 megawatts of power, which will earn between $3 billion and $4 billion a year for the developer, CH Karnchang Public Company of Thailand.

Somchit Tivalak, village chief and representative of the ruling communist Lao People’s Representative Party, is not quite sure what a hydroelectric dam is or how it will work, but he is convinced that good things are on the horizon. He says that his village will move to a place where it will have roads and electricity, as well as a reservoir teeming with fish.

Many others, however, are deeply worried. The lower Mekong, which winds through Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, is one of the last big untamed rivers in the world. Nearly 60 million people depend on its rich fisheries for their survival. If the Xayaburi dam is built, it will set a precedent for 10 other hydropower dams proposed for the main stem of the river. If all those proceed, nearly 55% of the river will be converted to slow-flowing reservoirs.

Predicting the effects of such massive changes is impossible because the Mekong is one of the most poorly studied major rivers in the world. Taxonomists know so little about the fish there that they are discovering new species at an unparalleled pace. And governments do not consistently monitor water and sediment flows along the river.

In the case of the proposed Xayaburi dam, some scientists say the environmental impact assessment (EIA) conducted for the builder is seriously flawed because it does not consider the wider effects of the dam. “The EIA of the Xayaburi dam is the worst EIA that I’ve ever seen,” says Ian Baird, a professor of geography at University of Wisconsin–Madison who has studied the region for decades.

Cambodia and Vietnam, which researchers say will receive a disproportionate share of the harm from the dam, have both objected to it. And a scientific panel hired by the Mekong River Commission — a regulatory body made up of government representatives from Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam — last year recommended a 10-year delay on damming the river so that researchers could gather the needed data. But the Laotian government, which will receive up to 30% of the revenue, says that it will push ahead.

So scientists are rushing to assess how the dams will affect the Mekong’s fisheries and the flow of sediment that helps to sustain its vast delta. “The problem is, dams are coming very fast and are going to deeply modify the environment in a very short time frame,” says Eric Baran, fisheries researcher at the World Fish Center in Phnom Penh. “And the countries are not equipped to deal with that yet.”

Calming the waters

From its origins in the Tibetan plateau, the Mekong winds 4,800 kilometres down to the South China Sea, making it the longest river in Southeast Asia. At least 781 species of freshwater fish ply its waters, including four of the largest freshwater fish species in the world. The biggest of them, the endangered Mekong giant catfish (Pangasianodon gigas), can grow to be as long as a car.

Years of war, lack of investment, and drastic variations in flow between the wet and dry seasons have held back hydropower development and helped to keep the lower reaches of the river wild. But in the 1990s, Chinese engineers began a project to build eight dams and reservoirs on the Upper Mekong, which have evened out the flow.

Taming A River | The Mekong | Map by Nature.com

Taming A River | The Mekong | Map by Nature.com

With the Mekong suitably subdued and with the demand for electricity rising in the region, the Laotian government and private developers are now racing to put up dams, and Xayaburi is the first one to near construction. If it is completed, eight more are likely to spring up in Laos and along its border with Thailand, according to International Rivers, an environmental non-governmental organization based in Berkeley, California.

The EIA found that Xayaburi’s effect on fish, water flow and erosion would be minimal. Instead of creating a large standing reservoir behind a massive concrete wall, Xayaburi will have a smaller wall that will allow water to pass beneath it in what is called a run-of-the-river design. According to the EIA, the dam will “improve the overall natural fish production capacity on the Mekong River in the project area, especially in the dry season”.

But researchers have challenged that conclusion, noting that Xayaburi and most of the dams proposed for the river’s main stem will have concrete walls tall enough to raise upstream water levels by between 30 and 65 metres. Although smaller than conventional reservoir dams, the walls would still block sediment and migrating fish, says Tarek Ketelsen, a hydrologist at the International Centre for Environmental Management in Hanoi, Vietnam, which evaluated the Xayaburi EIA.

Critics also object to the fact that the EIA considers the potential effects only for a “downstream area about 10 kilometres from the barrage site”, according to the document. That is a remarkably small stretch of the river, say researchers. The EIA was conducted for Karnchang by TEAM Group of Companies, a conglomerate of consulting firms based in Bangkok. When contacted by Nature, TEAM said it could not discuss the EIA because of the terms of its contract with Karnchang. Karnchang did not respond to calls or e-mails requesting comment.

Fishing for trouble

Toun Neang, 52, gets up at 4 a.m. every day to go fishing on the Tonlé Sap Lake, which connects to the Mekong River in Cambodia. When he arrives, he offers incense, rice and beer to the spirit in the river. “If we forgot to ask permission or make an offer, that day we will not be able to catch even a single fish,” he says.

A fisherman since childhood, Neang has a keen eye for the migration cycles that bring fish into and out of the lake from the Mekong. Adult fish lay eggs far upstream, and then flooding during the rainy season brings those eggs and juveniles to the Tonlé Sap, he says. He worries about dams. “If the water is blocked, how can fish migrate downstream? And how can fishermen like us live if there are no more fish?”

The future of the fishery matters because the Tonlé Sap — one of the world’s most productive inland fisheries for its size — provides half of the protein consumed in Cambodia. “It is hard for people in Europe or North America to imagine the role that freshwater capture plays in terms of food security, economically and even culturally,” says Kirk Winemiller, a fisheries researcher at Texas A&M University in College Station.

Modelling the effect of Xayaburi and other dams on this fishery is difficult because researchers lack baseline data about most fish in the Mekong. Around 229 species live upstream of the proposed Xayaburi site, and 70 of them are migratory. In terms of biomass, about 60% of the total catch in the Tonlé Sap is made up of species that migrate long distances, some from as far up as the Xayaburi area, more than 1,500 kilometres upstream.

Many dams have built-in fish ladders that allow some migrating fish to pass. But researchers say the two ladders in Xayaburi’s design are not enough for the number of fish and the diversity of migratory species there.

Among them is the Mekong giant catfish, the river’s best-studied species and longest-distance swimmer. Zeb Hogan, fisheries researcher at the University of Nevada, Reno, spent years collecting fish and extracting calcified ear bones, called otoliths, from their heads. The otoliths grow a new layer each day, incorporating elements from the water, which creates a chemical record of a fish’s travels.

Otolith studies have shown, for example, that the tropical Asian catfish Pangasius krempfi makes an epic migration (Z. Hogan et al. J. Fish Biol. 71, 818–832; 2007). It starts life in the higher reaches of the Mekong, then drifts down to the coastal flood plains during the monsoon season. Adult fish live in the brackish waters of the delta and the South China Sea, but they fight their way back upstream to spawn at the beginning of the rainy season every year.

Michio Fukushima, a fisheries scientist at the National Institute for Environmental Studies in Tsukuba, Japan, and his colleagues at Ubon Ratchathani University in Thailand are trying to adapt otolith analysis to other species that migrate within the Mekong. Many of these species are commercially important, particularly the Siamese mud carp (genus Henicorhynchus), known as trey riel in Cambodia. This 15-centimetre-long fish is a major food source for larger carnivores. It is an important ingredient in fish paste and in feed used in aquaculture, and it is the most-harvested species in the Mekong.

Fukushima’s work has so far traced some of the riel’s migration routes. The fish he captured from the Songkhram, a Mekong tributary in Thailand, seem to mature in the main stem of the Mekong before returning to the tributary.

Baird says that the riel may become threatened in the Mekong as dams are built. “You start putting dams along the river there, it will stop migration for the fish,” he says. “It is hard to say exactly — will it wipe it out all together or reduce it in number? We haven’t faced this situation with such a highly abundant species.”

Even less is known about other fish in the Mekong. Fukushima and Baran are now creating an atlas of fish distribution, and Baran and others are modelling the effects of dams on fisheries. Preliminary runs suggest that if all the proposed main-stem dams are built, the region’s annual catch of 2.1 million tonnes will drop by somewhere between 600,000 and 1.4 million tonnes. “Six hundred thousand tonnes represents the whole annual freshwater fish production in West Africa”, says Baran. “That’s huge.”

Sedimental journey

The proposed dams will also exacerbate the Mekong Delta’s ongoing battles with the sea. The delta, home to 17 million people in Vietnam and 2.4 million in Cambodia, seems to be losing coastal land, says James Syvitski, a geologist at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Sea levels there are rising by 6 millimetres a year because of a combination of global ocean swelling and local changes. And the destruction of mangrove forests has left the delta prone to devastating floods and typhoons. In a study of deltas around the world, Syvitski and his colleagues declared the Mekong Delta “in peril”, noting that an area of nearly 21,000 square kilometres is already less than two metres above sea level (J. P. M. Syvitski et al. Nature Geosci. 2, 681–686; 2009).

The proposed dams are projected to accelerate the sinking by blocking the flow of sediment that would otherwise nourish the flood plains and build up the delta. Mathias Kondolf, a fluvial geomorphologist at the University of California, Berkeley, estimates that the dams in China and on the lower Mekong will block about half of the river’s sediment, which could be disastrous for the delta.

Some dam designs reduce the problem by incorporating wide, low-lying outlets that allow sediment to pass through. But these can compromise power generation, and might not let through the heavy sediment loads that would accumulate far upstream near the start of a 60-kilometre-long reservoir, says Ketelsen.

All these unknowns explain why the team of consultants assembled by the Mekong River Commission (MRC) last year called for a 10-year delay in building the Xayaburi dam, recommending that Laos start with smaller dams on tributaries. The MRC did not take a stand on the proposed moratorium and would not have the power to enforce it. But scientists say that the MRC does have the clout to influence the design of dams.

“Hydropower is important for the development of a country like Laos, and it does have a right to develop,” says Ketelsen. “However, when it comes to a river like this, which has a global significance in terms of biodiversity, you don’t have to start with the most high-impact projects”. The idea of waiting has gained some international support. The Asian Development Bank in Manila, for example, says that building dams on the main stem of the Mekong is premature because too little is known about the environmental and social costs.

Last April, Laotian authorities agreed to delay construction of Xayaburi until after conducting another project review, the results of which are due to be submitted to the four nations of the MRC in a final meeting in the next few weeks. But officials have said recently in media reports that they have completed the review and plan to go ahead with construction. The MRC is keeping silent, waiting for the Mekong nations to meet. Near the Xayaburi site in northern Laos, it does not look as though construction crews are waiting for the final meeting. Trucks are paving mud roads with asphalt — a necessary first step towards dam construction.

Downriver in Ubon Ratchathani, Thailand, Fukushima gets on a speedboat to collect fish, water and sediment samples from a dam on a Mekong tributary. For the past two years, he has travelled through Cambodia, Laos and Thailand by boat and by motorcycle twice a year to collect data. When he captures a fish, he performs a rough surgery, slicing open its head to extract otoliths for later analysis in his lab.

Fukushima says that before the dams become a reality, he wants to establish a baseline of environmental and ecological conditions and to try to work with developers so that future dams will cause the least amount of harm. He remains cautiously hopeful that science can make a difference. Looking out over the water, he says, “there must be some way we can move towards a better future”.


Gayathri Vaidyanathan is a reporter with Greenwire in Washington DC. She was previously an International Development Research Center fellow at Nature.

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A Thai Perspective On Proposed Mainstream Mekong Dams

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Teerapong Pomun, Director at Living River Siam via Stimson

The Mekong River is very important for millions of local communities along the mainstream and its tributaries who depend heavily on the river’s natural ecosystem functions. The health of the river is the health of the communities. Changes in the river basin mean a lot to those marginalized people who too often have no voice and have limited alternatives for sustaining their livelihoods.

The villages along the Mekong mainly depend on fishing and agriculture that require irrigation water from the river. Dam construction in China has already caused impacts to the river ecosystems and subsequently downstream communities. Water-level fluctuation has been the most destructive impact from unannounced releases at upstream dams in China. Most of the Mekong’s fish species are migratory and their migration instincts depend on the natural flow of the river and the health of ecosystems. Some of the fish that are vulnerable to these changes are endangered species such as Mekong Giant Catfish.

Local fishermen depend heavily on migratory fish species. They have learned for generations how to successfully fish each migration for a given season, and how to manage the resulting food and income literally harvested from the river each season. Although the fish population decline already witnessed in parts of the Mekong is the result of many factors, dam construction is the most serious. Already, many restaurants in a province along the Mekong in Thailand are forced to import fish from the Tonle Sap Great Lake of Cambodia.

Riverbank gardens are another important source of food and income generation for locals. In the dry season, when the water level is low and villagers are not growing rice, gardens along the riverbank serve as their main resource. Upstream hydropower operations result in unpredictable water levels, which locals have never experienced before, and result in damage or loss to their crops and investment. Consequently, these conditions cause more negative impacts beyond just food and economic insecurity, including social and cultural problems.

Local Responses and Empowerment

In response to these developments, communities along the Mekong River have established the “Network of Thai People in Eight Mekong Provinces” because of their concern for the impacts they’ve already experienced from dams in China and those anticipated to result from the construction of additional dams in the lower basin. The problems they are already experiencing make locals realize that the dams planned for the river in Lao and Cambodia will be even more devastating.

One of their main strategies has focused on conducting local-level Thai Baan (villager) research to develop scientific evidence for use in their fight with those in support of more dam development. For example, this data could be used to sue the government and related authorities if the proposed Xayaburi dam is allowed to proceed. The research and data will also serve as an important tool for mobilizing, uniting, and empowering local communities in many other ways. Recently the “Network” organized a protest in Bangkok and engaged in other activities to campaign against the planned dams, including the creation and installation of big posters stating their opposition to the planned projects along the Thai-Lao border in all eight provinces.

Of course, another important avenue has been the Thai media who have increasingly covered Mekong hydropower development issues. This coverage reflects the concern of Thai people for protecting their natural resources. Although these concerns are not uniformly widespread throughout the whole country, the people in the eight provinces and those involved in environmental and social movements are intensely aware. In some cases, domestic dam construction is still a controversial issue and can cause conflict among Thais between supporters and those who oppose additional domestic hydropower development. As for the Mekong mainstream dams, it seems no one supports them.

The issue of the dams played a small role in the national elections this past July. People in the eight provinces of Northern and Northeastern Thailand form the core supporters of the Pheu Thai Party. During the election, the “Network” organized a forum aimed at sending a message to the politicians. The new Yingluck Administration has not yet made any statements on the proposed Mekong dams. However, the “Network” plans to send a message to the new government and their representatives stating their concerns and interests. Local people in the eight provinces believe that the new government should want to listen to their concerns because they won the election largely with the help and support of people in these areas.

The first strategy of Living River Siam is to strengthen civil society enough to participate meaningfully in water management. The second strategy is focused on the politics of knowledge. This means using information and knowledge as a tool for the local communities to engage on policy decisions. Living River Siam organizes trips to meet with local communities in the eight provinces to give them information, collect data, and listen to their concern. We work with them to set up the network and support local activities. We also spread their voices by organizing conference, produce publications, organizing a field trip for media and decision makers to visit the local communities, working with the media, cooperating with international organizations, and working with governmental sub-committees on the issue. One of our main activities is working with the communities along the river to collect data and conduct Thai Baan (villager) Research, research done by villagers based on local knowledge. We also use the research model as a tool for building a Mekong civil society network. The first goal is to elevate the voices of locals and ensure that their rights are recognized in water resource management. The second goal is to protect and maintain river ecosystems that are healthy enough to sustain local livelihoods.

Multilateralism and Institutional Improvements

The Mekong River Commission (MRC) should do more to work with civil society partners. This should include producing and providing information and knowledge for civil society organizations which could be used to support their outreach and engagement activities. Conversely, local communities, NGOs, and other civil society organizations can help the MRC conduct necessary research. This sort of relationship would also help to level the current power imbalance that exists among many of the main actors. An important new mechanism that should be established is a Mekong Community Fund. Such a fund will provide a path for communication while also supporting local participation in the various activities of the MRC. Ideally, the MRC office in each member country should establish an appropriate mechanism that allows for people’s participation in research, education, and engagement.

Furthermore, the creation of a People’s Commission of the Mekong River or Mekong Community Network set up by local communities, NGOs, and academics that have been working or directly experiencing these issues would be an important linkage between the MRC and citizens of member countries. It can either be an independent organization or established as a department of the MRC. The first step would be to organize a meeting for representatives of local communities. Past activities of the MRC have not served as a genuine forum for Mekong communities. In 2012, Living River Siam plans to organize an international meeting of Thai Baan Research network in the Mekong Basin. As we know that each Mekong country has different political and social system and are in different stages of development, this research model can provide a strategy for the Commission or Network as it is not necessarily a politic tool aimed at dam supporters or government.

Such an organization would also be a great target for support from the donor countries that traditionally fund the MRC. Their contributions to this new People’s Commission of the Mekong River would support the further development of an active, engaged, and responsible civil society in the Mekong Basin, while also developing new educational tools and providing a clear mechanism for the two-way transfer of knowledge.

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Laos to Start Building Mekong Dam This Year, Testing Neighbors

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Laos wants to start construction this year on the $3.8 billion Thai-financed Xayaburi hydropower plant on the Mekong River after changing the design to placate neighboring countries opposed to the project.

Laos completed a review of the dam initiated in April to ease concerns that it would harm rice production and fish catches downstream, said Viraphonh Viravong, director-general of the ministry of energy and mines’ Department of Electricity. Vietnam earlier recommended a 10-year delay for all hydropower projects on the river, which also runs through Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia from its source in China’s Tibetan plateau.

“We would like to start toward the end of this year when the dry season comes,” Viraphonh said in an interview in Hanoi yesterday. “We want to explain and make the other countries comfortable. If they are still very negative about it, of course we will spend some more time on it.”

The hydropower plant is the first among eight that Laos plans to build on the Mekong to expand Southeast Asia’s smallest economy by selling electricity to neighboring countries. The landlocked nation may have about 38,000 megawatts of installed capacity supply by 2020, about 15 times greater than its domestic needs, according to a presentation by state-owned Electricite du Laos at a conference in Hanoi yesterday.

Independent Review

Laos presented the project review conducted by Switzerland- based Poyry Energy AG to Vietnam and plans to meet separately with Thai and Cambodian officials to discuss recommendations, Viraphonh said. The government can decide whether to proceed with the project at any point.

In April, Laos proposed to end a review of Xayaburi called for under a 1995 agreement between the Mekong countries requiring prior consultations before building hydropower plants on the river. Officials agreed then to hold a ministerial meeting to discuss the project, a gathering that has yet to take place.

“Laos has no right to go forward on the project by itself,” said Ame Trandem, Southeast Asia program director for International Rivers, a Berkeley, California-based nonprofit group that aims to protect rivers and human rights. “By doing so it will violate the 1995 Mekong agreement and the spirit of regional cooperation.”

Meeting Guidelines

Poyry’s review found that Xayaburi’s design was in accordance with the preliminary design guidelines from the Mekong River Commission, an intergovernmental body, and other international design manuals, Viraphonh said in a presentation. The company recommended improvements for sediment transport and fish-passing facilities, he said.

Poyry is confident “any potential long-term trans-boundary impacts on the downstream region would be insignificant” if the recommended design changes are implemented, according to the presentation.

“Look, this has been reviewed by an independent engineer, very famous in the world,” Viraphonh said yesterday. “And if they say ’yes, you can go ahead,’ why not?”

Thailand agreed in December to buy 95 percent of the electricity from the plant, which will have a capacity of 1,285 megawatts. Ch. Karnchang Pcl, Thailand’s third-biggest construction company by market value, owns a 57.5 percent stake in Xayaburi.

Supamas Trivisvavet, an executive vice president at the company, declined to comment when reached by phone today.

Clinton Concern

PTT Pcl (PTT), Thailand’s biggest energy company, has a 25 percent stake, while Bangkok-based Electricity Generating Pcl owns 12.5 percent, according to company filings. The 115 billion baht ($3.8 billion) project is expected to start commercial operations in January 2019, PTT told the Thai stock exchange on March 1.

The proposed alterations would slightly increase the cost of the project, Viraphonh said, without providing figures. The plant would be able to meet its target completion date if work started later this year, he said.

The Mekong and its tributaries provide food, water and transportation to about 60 million people in the four countries. In a July meeting with counterparts from Mekong nations in Bali, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton called for a pause in construction of dams on the river “until we are all able to do a better assessment of the likely consequences.”

Food Security

Vietnam officials in January recommended delaying the project and moving it to a Mekong tributary because it would affect “the safety of water sources and food security for Vietnam as well as for the whole world,” according to notes of the meetings. Thailand and Cambodia also favored more studies on the dam, the notes show.

A technical review in March by the Mekong River Commission found that the dam may lead to the extinction of species like the Mekong giant catfish and “gaps in knowledge” mean the full extent of the downstream impact on fisheries is hard to estimate. The dam “will not materially affect” the quantity and timing of river flows to Cambodia and Vietnam, it said.

Laos has about six million people and a gross domestic product of $5.6 billion, according to statistics from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Hydropower and mining projects are set to underpin GDP growth that may reach 7.7 percent this year, the Asian Development Bank said in an April 7 report.

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To contact the reporters on this story: Nick Heath in Hanoi at [email protected]; Daniel Ten Kate in Bangkok at [email protected]

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Hirschberg at [email protected]

Lessons from China’s dams

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Peter Bosshard for the Phnom Penh Post

China counts half of all the world’s large dams within its borders. During the last 10 years, Chinese companies have also successfully conquered the global market for hydropower projects. With the Kamchay Dam and five other projects under construction, Chinese companies are also the dominant player in Cambodia’s hydropower sector.

Many Chinese dam builders acquired their technology in the giant Three Gorges Project on the Yangtze River. Companies like the Kamchay Dam’s Sinohydro frequently refer to the Yangtze dam as proof of their technical excellence. Like many other foreign leaders, Prime Minister Hun Sen praised the project when he visited the dam site in 2004. In a surprise move, the Chinese government has now acknowledged that the Three Gorges Project has serious social, environmental and geological problems. What are the lessons from this experience?

With a capacity of 18,200 megawatts, the Three Gorges Dam is the world’s biggest hydropower project. In spite of its daunting complexity, the government completed the project ahead of time in 2008.

The Yangtze dam generates 2 percent of China’s electricity and substitutes at least 30 million tons of coal per year. Yet its social, environmental, geological and financial costs are staggering. Here is a brief overview of the main problems:

• Displacement: The Three Gorges Dam has submerged 13 cities, 140 towns and 1,350 villages, and displaced more than 1.2 million people. Many resettlers were cheated out of their compensation payments and did not receive the new jobs or land that the government had promised. While some of the newly built towns have recovered from the initial shock of displacement, others are beset by widespread unemployment and impoverishment.

• Ecological collapse: Damming the Three Gorges caused massive impacts on the ecosystem of the Yangtze, Asia’s longest river. The reservoir has turned the once mighty river into a stagnant garbage dump with frequent toxic algae blooms. Because the barrage stopped fish migration, commercial fisheries have plummeted, the Yangtze river dolphin has been extinct, and other species are facing the same fate.

• Erosion: Government officials were prepared for social and environmental problems, but not for the dam’s massive geological impacts. The strong fluctuation of the water level in the Three Gorges reservoir destabilises the slopes of the Yangtze Valley, and triggers frequent landslides. Erosion affects half the reservoir area, and more than 300,000 additional people will have to be relocated to stabilise the reservoir banks.

• Downstream impacts: The Yangtze River carries more than 500 million tons of silt into the reservoir every year. Most of this is now withheld from the downstream regions and particularly the Yangtze delta. As a consequence, up to four square kilometres of coastal wetlands are eroded every year. The delta is subsiding, and seawater intrudes upriver, affecting agriculture and drinking water. Because of the lack of nutrients, coastal fisheries are also suffering.

• Susceptibility to climate change: The Three Gorges Dam illustrates how the vagaries of climate change create new risks for hydropower projects. The dam operators planned to fill the Three Gorges reservoir for the first time in 2009, but were not able to do so due to insufficient rains. The current year has brought Central China the worst drought in five decades, which has again sharply reduced the power generation of the Three Gorges and other dams. Ever more unreliable rainfalls put a big question mark behind the benefits and the economics of the Three Gorges Dam.

• Financial cost: The official cost of the Yangtze dam is US$27 billion. Critics argue that if all hidden costs are included, the project’s real price tag amounts to $88 billion. It would have been cheaper to generate electricity and replace coal through other means. While the dam was under construction, the energy efficiency of China’s economy decreased. According to the Energy Foundation in the US, it would have been “cheaper, cleaner and more productive for China to have invested in energy efficiency” rather than new power plants.

On May 18 the State Council, China’s highest government body, for the first time acknowledged the dam’s serious problems. “The project is now greatly benefiting the society in the aspects of flood prevention, power generation, river transportation and water resource utilisation”, the government maintained, but it has “caused some urgent problems in terms of environmental protection, the prevention of geological hazards and the welfare of the relocated communities.”

The Three Gorges Dam has served as a model for projects in Cambodia and many other countries. Three Gorges contractors such as Sinohydro and Gezhouba and other Chinese companies are currently building the Da Dai, Kamchay, Kirirom III, Lower Stung Russey, Stung Atay and Stung Tatay dams on Cambodian rivers. Chinese companies have also signed a memorandum of understanding to develop the Sambor Dam on the Mekong, and have proposed several projects on the Stung Cheay Areng and Srepok rivers.

What lesson does the Three Gorges Project hold as Cambodia considers its future hydropower strategy? First and foremost, the Yangtze dam shows that large dams on major rivers are massive interventions into highly complex ecosystems. Their impacts can occur thousands of kilometres away and many years after construction has been completed. It is impossible to predict and mitigate all social and environmental impacts of such projects.

The Three Gorges experience demonstrates that damming the mainstream of major rivers is particularly damaging, in that it will interrupt the migration of fish and the transport of sediments throughout a river’s ecosystems. As the World Commission on Dams recommended in its path-breaking report, Dams and Development, a river’s mainstream should not be dammed as long as there are other options.

A Strategic Environmental Assessment prepared for the Mekong River Commission (MRC) predicts that damming the lower Mekong mainstream would cause the loss of riverine and marine fisheries, reduce the agricultural productivity in the floodplains of the Tonle Sap and the Mekong Delta, and erode the delta’s coastline and river channels. All these impacts have been borne out by the Three Gorges Project.

The MRC was right to recommend that the lower Mekong should not be dammed in the next 10 years, and the Cambodian government has good reasons to call for caution regarding the proposed Xayaburi Dam in Laos. It should be equally cautious as it considers the Sambor Dam in Kratie Province.

Chinese scientists predicted many of the impacts of the Three Gorges Dam, yet their voices were silenced in what the government claimed was the national interest. In multi-billion dollar projects, the national interest is often taken hostage by political prestige, bureaucratic power struggles, and the generous kickbacks of a bribery-prone industry. These vested interests need to be balanced and held accountable by a transparent and participatory decision-making process.

Finally, China spent tens of billions of dollars on the resettlement program for the Three Gorges Dam. But because the affected people were excluded from decision-making, the programme often ignored their needs and desires, and resulted in wide-spread impoverishment and frustration. The experience of the Yangtze dam demonstrates that affected communities and other stakeholders should be involved in the decision-making regarding large infrastructure projects from the beginning.

Peter Bosshard is the Policy Director of International Rivers. He has monitored the Three Gorges Dam since the 1990s.

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US senators seek safeguards on Mekong dams

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AFP

WASHINGTON — US senators on Thursday urged greater environmental safeguards for dams on the Mekong River, calling on Washington to use its influence through global lenders to encourage a sustainable approach.

A bill introduced in the Senate applauds the delay in Laos of construction of the $3.8 billion Xayaburi project and called for further delay in Mekong River dams until assurances of adequate planning and regional cooperation.

Senator Jim Webb, a member of President Barack Obama’s Democratic Party who heads a subcommittee on East Asia, called the postponement of the Xayaburi hydropower project “a positive step forward.”

“I hope that all countries will abide by their commitments to complete a robust assessment of this dam before moving forward on any construction. Absent such a collaborative approach, the ecological and economic stability of Southeast Asia is at risk,” Webb said in a statement.

The bill sponsored by Webb along with leading Republicans calls on the United States to use its “voice and vote” in international institutions to ensure strict environmental safeguards for Mekong River projects.

It also calls on the United States to “assist in identifying sustainable economic, water and energy alternatives to mainstream hydropower dams on the Mekong River.”

More than 60 million people in the lower Mekong basin depend on the river system for food, transport and economic activity. The Xayaburi dam would have been the first of 11 such projects.

Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam urged Laos to put off the dam, which environmentalists said would trap vital nutrients, increase algae growth and prevent dozens of species of migratory fish — including the giant catfish — swimming upstream to spawning grounds.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in 2009 launched a Lower Mekong initiative as part of a drive to re-engage Southeast Asia, with a focus on education, adapting to climate change and fighting diseases including HIV/AIDS.

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Laos Mekong dam on hold, for now

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Milton Osborne for The Interpreter

At a Mekong River Commission (MRC) meeting on 19 April in Phnom Penh, Cambodian and Vietnamese officials recorded their Governments’ firm opposition the Xayaburi dam the Lao Government has proposed building on the Mekong’s mainstream between Luang Prabang and Vientiane. This was followed by sharp rejections of the dam from the prime ministers of their two countries, Hun Sen and Nguyen Tan Dung.

Thailand’s position in relation to the dam was less clear-cut, but its representatives also indicated their concerns about its likely effect on downstream countries.

The Mekong River, downstream of the proposed Xayaburi dam site | International Rivers / Pianporn Deetes

The Mekong River, downstream of the proposed Xayaburi dam site | International Rivers / Pianporn Deetes

The first of eleven projected hydropower dams on the Mekong downstream of China, Xayaburi would, if built, be constructed by the major Thai construction company, CH Kamchang, and be financed by Thai banks (this proposed dam and opposition to it has been discussed in several of my previous posts and in my Lowy Paper, The Mekong: River Under Threat.)

In principle, no decision about the controversial dam will now be made until a meeting of the MRC’s Ministerial Council in October. Professor Phil Hirsch of the Australian Mekong Resource Centre at the University of Sydney has summarised the situation as it now stands in a detailed article in the Bangkok Post.

Initially, it seemed possible the government in Vientiane was ready to proceed with construction of the Xayaburi dam in defiance of its fellow MRC members’ opposition, and this was certainly the impression CH Kamchang was ready to give.

But now Laos has stated that it will undertake a review of the arguments which have been put forward against the dam’s construction. Just how long such a review will take is unclear. Meanwhile, at least one Thai bank has indicated it will not continue to offer funds for the project.

It is difficult not to conclude that Vietnam’s opposition to the dam has weighed heavily in the balance of Vientiane’s decision to review the arguments against Xayaburi. And this appears to be confirmed by a news release emerging from the ASEAN meeting in Jakarta over last weekend in which the Vietnamese prime minister praised Laos for its decision to suspend the Xayaburi project.

As reported by the southern Vietnamese newspaper Thanh Nien (Youth), Prime Minister Dung ‘said the decision to halt the project reflected the cooperation and deep consideration that Laos has given to Vietnam’s proposal’. This might well represent a Vietnamese gloss on the situation, as there are good reasons for thinking that the Lao government still harbours a strong desire to build Xayaburi, as well as some of the other six dams it has contemplated.

If the Xayaburi project is abandoned, this will represent a triumph for the opposition that has come from a wide range of academics, NGOs and grass roots movements in Thailand, as well as increasingly vocally from Vietnam.

But many questions still remain about future plans for dams on the Mekong in both Lao and Cambodia. Not least, it is far from clear whether Hun Sen’s opposition to Xayaburi will be matched by a readiness to review, and possibly abandon, his own plans for Mekong dams, particularly one at Sambor, which he has previously firmly supported.

For the moment, suspension of the Xayaburi project removes a divisive issue that could further complicate relations within ASEAN at a time when Cambodia and Thailand show no signs of finding a satisfactory modus vivendi in relation to their border problems linked to Preah Vihear.

But if, contrary to current estimates, Laos moves to build the Xayaburi dam, this will most certainly represent a further reason for doubting the capacity of ASEAN to manage disputes among its members.

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Lao PM says more study for controversial Mekong dam

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By Thuy Nguyen for SGGP

Lao Prime Minister Thoongsing Thammavong has told his Vietnamese counterpart Nguyen Tan Dung that Laos had decided to postpone the construction of the controversial Xayaburi hydropower project, and would conduct more environmental impact assessments with international experts.

The Lao PM announced this during his meeting with the Vietnamese PM on May 7 on the sidelines of the 18th ASEAN Summit in Jakarta, Indonesia, the Vietnamese Government website reported.

The website said the two leaders agreed to instruct relevant agencies to conduct joint research within the Mekong River Commission framework with the possible participation of experienced and prestigious international scientists to seek firm scientific ground for future decisions regarding the issue.

The Vietnamese PM thanked the Lao Party and Government for this important decision, the website reported.

Meanwhile, the developer of the US$3.8 billion dam on the Mekong River – Thai company Ch. Karnchang – had earlier said preliminary construction works “somewhat progressed” in the second half of 2010, while the prior consultation process for the dam, which is compulsory, is currently going on.

Ch. Karnchang said this in its annual report 2010, adding that its investment in Xayaburi Power Company Limited in 2010 amounted to 760 million baht last year.

This company has an initial registered capital of US$25 million, equivalent to 800 million baht, with Ch. Karnchang holding 95 percent of shares, the report said. In July 2010, Ch. Karnchang negotiated a tariff agreement with the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, which would buy electricity from the Xayaburi project, the report added.

Prior Consultation Process

Under a deal signed by Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam in 1995 to create the Mekong River Commission, the four Mekong countries agreed to consult one another whenever one of them planned a major dam project. No country can veto another’s plans, the 1995 agreement says.

The four riparian countries met on April 19, 2011 in the Laotian capital of Vientiane to debate whether Laos should proceed with the 1,260-megawatt dam. The meeting failed to come to a common conclusion on how to proceed with the project, so the four countries had to agree to put the problem up to the ministerial level.

At the meeting, Vietnam expressed its deep and serious concerns for the lack of adequate, appropriate and comprehensive assessments of transboundary and cumulative impacts that the project may cause to the downstream, especially in the Mekong Delta. Vietnam recommended deferment of this and other planned hydropower projects on the Mekong mainstream for at least 10 years.

The Lao delegation at the meeting insisted there was is need to extend the process since this option would not be practical, while transboundary environmental impacts on other riparian countries are unlikely.

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