The Mekong river: Lies, dams and statistics

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source:  http://www.economist.com/blogs/banyan/2012/07/mekong-river

Jul 26th 2012, 8:55 by T.F. | XAYABURI and VIENTIANE

A DENSE cloud of diplomatic doublespeak hangs over the turbid waters of the Mekong. An amazing week of conflicting statements, stark contradictions and confusion has made everything about the site of a controversial dam project at Xayaburi, in northern Laos, as clear as mud.

The Mekong, which courses through the very heart of inland South-East Asia, is home to the world’s largest freshwater fisheries, about 800 different native species. Its rich biodiversity is second only to the Amazon’s. Through fishing, aquaculture and irrigation, it sustains 65m people.

Since September 2010 there has been an ongoing consultation process among the four riparian countries party to the Mekong River Commission (MRC)—Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand—about whether the Xayaburi project should be approved or blocked. The dam would be the first of its kind. The government of Laos has repeatedly claimed it would heed the strong objections lodged by Cambodia and Vietnam, who fear that the dam’s side effects could decimate fisheries and reduce the flow of sediment needed by farmlands downriver.

There was a current of déjà vu swirling around Phnom Penh this month. On July 13th, at an annual summit for the foreign ministers of ASEAN, the envoy from Laos made a familiar declaration: that work on the Xayaburi dam has been suspended, pending further studies. Reuters, understandably, took this to be an official statement of fact from the Laotian government.

Only three days later Viraphonh Viravong, a deputy minister of energy, contradicted the foreign minister’s statement. A tour of the site, sponsored by the government of Laos, served to rubbish the foreign minister’s statement at ASEAN. As Mr Viraphonh made clear to a party of invited visitors, including MRC officials, diplomats and a few technical experts on fisheries, groundwork is going ahead after all, without any waiting for a further assessment of the project’s impact on the river.

In the MRC’s judgment, “the project is in an advanced preparation stage with…exploratory excavation in and around the river completed.” International Rivers, an NGO, made their own unofficial investigation of the site in June, observing that the river had already been dredged and widened. This despite the fact that in December 2011 the four member-states of the MRC had agreed on the need for further study of the dam’s prospective effects on the environment. The understanding was that no dam would be built until the study was completed.

Failure to halt the dam at Xayaburi would deal an enormous blow to the credibility of the MRC. Its authority depends on the possibility of enforcing co-operation between its members. Moreover the dam’s construction could trigger a major diplomatic rift between the four states themselves.

The initial stages of its construction are visibly under way. So has Laos decided to renege on its international commitments?

This is where things get murky. Mr Viraphonh claims that what observers witnessed was only “preparatory work”. He says the actual construction of the dam has not begun, nor has the river been blocked.

But fisheries experts say that long before the river is fully blocked, existing construction will disturb the riverbed enough to affect fish populations significantly. And even while the river flows, construction work will change the downstream flow of sediments.

The Laotian government has appointed two foreign consultants to help make its case. Pöyry Energy, based in Switzerland, and the French Compagnie Nationale du Rhône are trying to convince Cambodia, Vietnam and other sceptics that the Xayaburi dam will be benign.

Both firms argue that “fish passes” or weirs can be built to enable 85% of the river’s fish to get past the dam’s turbines. According to their plan, the fish could swim happily up or down the Mekong. But this claim has never been put into practice. Eric Baran of the World Fish Centre in Phnom Penh joined last week’s trip to the dam site. He observed that “there has never been a successful fish pass built for a dam the size of Xayaburi, anywhere in the tropics.”

Pöyry Energy’s previous report, a compliance review of the Xayaburi dam in 2011, was widely faulted. More recently, the firm’s parent company has been blacklisted by the World Bank for an unrelated charge of corruption and its CEO has resigned.

Laos might nonetheless esteem the views of its Western consultants. But it heard very different advice from America’s sectary of state, when she made her recent visit to the region. “I’ll be very honest with you. We made a lot of mistakes,” Hilary Clinton said in her opening remarks to the ASEAN summit. She was talking about dams built in the United States. “We’ve learned some hard lessons about what happens when you make certain infrastructure decisions and I think that we all can contribute to helping the nations of the Mekong region avoid the mistakes that we and others made.”

America has its own concerns too. It might worry that if the Xayaburi project goes ahead, China is set to build at least three more dams further down the Mekong, bringing its commercial interests ever deeper into the sub-region.

Cambodia’s minister for water resources, Lim Kean Hor, recently send a letter of protest to the Laotian government calling on them to “halt all preliminary construction and respect the Mekong spirit of friendship and international co-operation.”

The Mekong delta is Vietnam’s rice-bowl. The government has been arguing all along for a ten-year moratorium on dam construction on the river, basing its case on an assessment commissioned by the MRC and finished in 2010. Vietnamese scientists have warned that dams upstream would lead to devastating losses of fisheries and rice productivity and to the salinisation of cropland.

And finally NGOs representing people from the eight provinces in north-east Thailand are about to file legal action in the their country’s courts. They mean to force their national government to review the contract that the state electricity body signed, which obliges it to buy 95% of all the power from the Xayaburi dam.

Thailand’s government has already endorsed the position that Xayaburi dam should be put on hold pending further studies, though it has done so relatively quietly. If Vietnam’s and Cambodia’s conflict with Laos escalates, Thailand’s role will become critical.

The dam is financed by the four major Thai banks. The dam-builder is a Bangkok-based corporation, Ch. Karnchang. The north-eastern Thais’ campaign is aimed at persuading Thailand’s government to stop the project by blocking the banks’ loans. Such indirect tactics might be the only way left to save the MRC—and to preserve some semblance of international co-operation along the Mekong.

(Picture credit: Wikimedia Commons)

How the Next 12 Months of Xayaburi Dam Construction Will Affect the Mekong River

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source:  http://www.internationalrivers.org/blogs/267/how-the-next-12-months-of-xayaburi-dam-construction-will-affect-the-mekong-river

Thu, 07/26/2012 – 4:30am

By: Kirk Herbertson

The Xayaburi Dam site in Laos is abuzz with activity these days. Thousands of laborers and dozens of construction vehicles work around the clock to finish the dam on schedule by 2019. Access roads, worker camps, and transmission lines have been built. Villages are being resettled. The river has already been widened at one point, and a dike cuts into the river at another point. One of the project’s lead engineers, the Pöyry Group, told a delegation of visiting diplomats last week that the coffer dam—which diverts the river while the permanent dam is built—will be completed by next May. Soon after that, the dam itself will begin to appear.

Laos’ rapid progress on the dam worries its neighbors. The Mekong River is a shared resource, and what happens upstream in Laos can affect people downstream in Thailand, Cambodia, and Vietnam. According to the 1995 treaty that governs use of the Mekong River, the governments of Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam must jointly decide if the Xayaburi Dam will go forward. No decision has yet been reached. Cambodia and Vietnam have both requested that transboundary impact studies be completed before a decision is made, but Laos has said it will not conduct these studies. A regional diplomatic crisis may soon erupt.

Construction hasn’t started?

Proceeding with construction at this early stage would be a clear violation of the 1995 Mekong Agreement and international law. Not to worry, Laos spokesperson Viraphonh Viravong told the Bangkok Post last week. “We have not started working on any construction on the Mekong River that is permanent.”

Yet the 1995 Mekong Agreement makes no distinction between “permanent” and “temporary” construction activities along the river. It worries instead about any activities that will cause “harmful effects” to the river’s ecosystems. Similarly, international law (the rules that govern how states treat one another) kicks in when the harmful effects are likely to be transboundary, as they are in this case.

As it turns out, many of the construction activities already underway at the dam site are likely to have harmful effects on the Mekong River.

Yes, construction affects the river

As the Mekong River Commission noted in its 2011 technical review of the proposed Xayaburi Dam, “impacts during the construction phase are equally as important as those during dam operation.” (p. 32) Based on experiences with other dams, here are just a few of the impacts we might see in the next 12 months if construction continues:

• The coffer dam and other structures will divert the river, which could prevent fish from migrating past the dam site and block sediment flows downstream.
• As extra sediment becomes loosened during construction and mixes into the water, it could change water quality, habitats, and the ability of fish to breathe. This could lead to declining fish populations.
• Loosened sediment could bury and harm fish eggs.
• Pollution from the construction site could affect water quality and alter ecosystems, harming fisheries and agriculture downstream.
• Disturbances to the river could affect plankton and microorganisms that are important to the stability of the river’s ecosystem.
• Resettlement of local communities could create food security problems, based on experiences in the first resettled village.

What happens in Laos in the next 12 months will not just be localized. The construction phase is likely to have significant impacts that can be felt downstream in neighboring countries.

Pöyry, CNR, and the art of making scientific-sounding promises

Yet we still do not know the full extent of the harm that the Xayaburi Dam’s construction phase will cause. Laos’ consultants Pöyry Group and Compagnie Nationale du Rhône (CNR) do not know either. Despite Cambodia’s and Vietnam’s formal requests over one year ago, Laos has still not studied the baseline conditions of the river. How do fish behave in this part of the river, for example, and how do people downstream depend on these fish? It is simply not possible to understand the full extent of the dam’s impacts without first gathering this data. This is one reason why many scientists are skeptical about the unequivocal promises by Pöyry and CNR that the project will have minimal environmental impacts.

The 1995 Mekong Agreement is not perfectly written by any means, but is the best framework the region’s governments have for reaching a mutually acceptable solution. Where there are gaps, international law can provide guidance—such as the requirement to assess transboundary impacts before proceeding with any construction.

The time has come for the Mekong governments to bring Laos back into compliance with the 1995 treaty, and to return to the structure that the treaty provides. The first step, as the Cambodian government has already requested, is for all construction activities on the Xayaburi Dam to stop while further impact studies are carried out.

Ten more dams have been proposed for the Mekong River, eight of them in Laos. No one wants to repeat the chaos of Xayaburi, or to learn a few years from now that we could have prevented all of the harm that the Xayaburi Dam will soon bring.

 Kirk Herbertson

More information:

• Visit our Media Kit on the Xayaburi Dam
• Read our legal analysis of Laos’ obligations under international law
• Read our legal analysis of Laos’ obligations under the 1995 Mekong Agreement
• Comments on the Poyry report
• Comments on the CNR report

Kirk Herbertson is a lawyer and Southeast Asia Policy Coordinator for International Rivers.

Recent Posts in Blog

• How the Next 12 Months of Xayaburi Dam Construction Will Affect the Mekong River – July 26, 2012
• Testing the Waters: Laos Pushes Xayaburi Dam to Critical Point – July 19, 2012
• Ch. Karnchang Already Causing Food Insecurity Near Xayaburi Dam Site – July 11, 2012
• Scientists Warn of Catastrophe for Food Security in the Mekong – March 12, 2012
• Xayaburi Dam: What Next? – January 19, 2012

Hillary Clinton makes historic Laos visit

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/laos/9394069/Hillary-Clinton-makes-historic-Laos-visit.html

Decades after the US gave Laos a horrific distinction as the world’s most heavily bombed nation, Hillary Clinton, the Secretary of State, has pledged to help get rid of millions of unexploded bombs that still pockmark the impoverished country.

US Secratry of State Hillary Cline greets Lao Foreign Minister Thongloun Sisoulit Photo: AFP/Getty Images

7:22AM BST 12 Jul 2012

The US dropped more than 2 million tons of bombs on the North Vietnamese ally during its “secret war” between 1964 and 1973 – about a ton of ordnance for each Laotian man, woman and child. That exceeded the amount dropped on Germany and Japan together in World War II.

Four decades later, American weapons are still claiming lives. When the war ended, about a third of some 270 million cluster bombs dropped on Laos had failed to detonate. More than 20,000 people have been killed in Laos since then by ordnance, according to Laos’ government, and agricultural development has been stymied.

Mrs Clinton, gauging whether the nation can evolve into a new foothold of American influence in Asia, met with the prime minister and foreign minister, part of a weeklong diplomatic tour of southeast Asia. The goal is to bolster America’s standing in some of the fastest growing markets of the world, and counter China’s expanding economic, diplomatic and military dominance of the region.

Mrs Clinton said she and Laotian leaders “traced the arc of our relationship from addressing the tragic legacies of the past to finding a way to being partners of the future.”

Laos is the latest test case of the Obama administration’s efforts to “pivot” US foreign policy away from the long wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The efforts follow a long period of estrangement between Washington and a former Cold War-era foe, and come as US relations also warm with countries such as Burma and Vietnam.

In her meetings, Mrs Clinton discussed environmental concerns over a proposed dam on the Mekong River as well as investment opportunities and the joint efforts to clean up the unexploded bombs dropped across Laos over what was once called the Ho Chi Minh trail. Greater American support for programs in these fields will be included in a multimillion-dollar initiative for Southeast Asia to be announced later this week.

Mrs Clinton visited a Buddhist temple and a US-funded prosthetic centre for victims of American munitions. There, she met a man named Phongsavath Souliyalat, who told her how he had lost both his hands and his eyesight from a cluster bomb on his 16th birthday, four years ago.

“We have to do more,” Mrs Clinton told him. “That’s one of the reasons I wanted to come here today, so that we can tell more people about the work that we should be doing together.” Although the US bombed Laos to loosen its alliance with the North Vietnamese, the current Vietnamese government focuses its efforts in Laos on recovering its own dead, more than cleaning up unexploded bombs.

Cleanup has been excruciatingly slow. The Washington-based Legacies of War says only 1 per cent of contaminated lands have been cleared and has called on Washington to provide far greater assistance. The State Department has provided $47 million since 1997, though a larger effort could make Laos “bomb-free in our lifetimes,” California Rep. Mike Honda argued Wednesday.

“Let us mend the wounds of the past together so that Laos can begin a new legacy of peace,” he said.

The US is spending $9 million this year on cleanup operations for unexploded ordnance in Laos and is likely to offer more in the coming days.

It is part of a larger Obama administration effort to reorient the direction of US diplomacy and commercial policy as the world’s most populous continent becomes the centre of the global economy over the next century. It is also a reaction to China’s expanding influence.

The last US secretary of state to visit Laos was John Foster Dulles in 1955. His plane landed after a water buffalo was cleared from the tarmac.

At that time, the mountainous, sparsely populated nation was near the centre of US foreign policy. On leaving office, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned his successor, John F. Kennedy, that if Laos fell to the communists, all Southeast Asia could be lost as well.

While Vietnam ended up the focal point of America’s “domino theory” foreign policy, Laos was drawn deeply into the conflict as the U.S. helped support its anti-communist forces and bombed North Vietnamese supply lines and bases.

Landlocked and impoverished Laos offers fewer resources than its far larger neighbours and has lagged in Asia’s economic boom. It remains one of the poorest countries in Asia, even as it hopes to boost its development with accession soon to the World Trade Organisation.

In recent years, China has stepped up as Laos’ principal source of assistance, with loans and grants of up to $350 million over the past two decades. But like many others in its region, Laos’ government is wary of Beijing’s intentions. And it has kept an envious eye on neighbouring Vietnam’s 40 per cent surge in commercial trade with the United States over the past two years, as well as the sudden rapprochement between the U.S. and nearby Burma.

Persistent human rights issues stand in the way of closer relations with Washington. The US remains concerned about the plight of the ethnic Hmong minority, most of whom fled the country after fighting for a US-backed guerrilla army during the Vietnam War. Nearly 250,000 resettled in the United States. The US has pressed Laos to respect the rights of returnees from neighbouring countries.

Washington also has been seeking greater co-operation from Laos on the search for US soldiers missing in action since the Vietnam War. More than 300 Americans remain unaccounted for in Laos.

And the US is pressing the Laotian government to hold off on a proposed $3.5 billion dam project across the Mekong River. The dam would be the first across the river’s mainstream and has sparked a barrage of opposition from neighbouring countries and environmental groups, which warn that tens of millions of livelihoods could be at stake.

The project is currently on hold, and Washington hopes to stall it further with the promise of funds for new environmental studies.

Source: agencies

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Clinton Presses Laos for More Studies on Mekong Dam in Visit

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source:  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-07-11/clinton-lands-in-laos-to-discuss-mekong-dam-war-legacy.html

By Daniel Ten Kate and Nicole Gaouette – Jul 11, 2012 5:30 AM ET

Hillary Clinton pushed Laos for more studies on a $3.6 billion hydropower dam on the Mekong River opposed by neighboring countries in the first visit by a U.S. Secretary of State in 57 years.

The trip is part of a broader sweep Clinton is making through Asia as the U.S. increases its engagement with the world’s fastest growing economies, in part to counter China’s growing clout. Laos, a landlocked nation of 6 million people bordering China, plans to expand its generating capacity and sell electricity to its neighbors.

Laotian Prime Minister Thongsing Thammavong assured Clinton that the Xayaburi power project wouldn’t proceed without approval from neighboring countries, according to a State Department official who wasn’t authorized to speak on the record. Laos plans to hold an international conference about the project to ease concerns, the official said.

The dam remains an area of contention as the U.S. seeks to broaden its engagement with Laos, which is still struggling with unexploded ordnance left over from the Vietnam War. Clinton discussed cooperation on the deadly material as well as accounting for U.S. personnel who remain missing, according to a joint statement. Laos is the smallest economy among members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Dam Studies

The Xayaburi dam’s approval may pave the way for seven others that Laos plans to build on the Mekong. The government has aimed to convince its neighbors by showing them studies it commissioned from Compagnie Nationale du Rhône and Switzerland- based Poyry Energy AG.

“Both the reports of Poyry and CNR indicated that the project has created a negligible impact in respect of environmental and social considerations,” Xaypaseuth Phomsoupha, director-general of Laos’s Ministry of Energy and Mines, told reporters in Bangkok on June 20.

While Laos is building access roads and other infrastructure around the dam site, construction on the river itself won’t start “in the absence of the sign-off from our neighbors,” he said.

Vietnam has recommended a 10-year delay for all hydropower projects over environmental concerns on the river, which winds through Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia from its source in China’s Tibetan plateau. About 60 million people along the Mekong depend on the river and its tributaries for food, water and transportation.

Thai Financiers

In 2010, Thailand made an initial agreement to buy 95 percent of the electricity from the Xayaburi plant, which will have a capacity of 1,285 megawatts.

Ch. Karnchang Pcl (CK), Thailand’s third-biggest construction company by market value, owns a 57.5 percent stake in the Xayaburi project. PTT Pcl (PTT), Thailand’s biggest company, has a 25 percent stake and Electricity Generating Pcl (EGCO) owns 12.5 percent.

In her meetings with Thongsing and Deputy Prime Minister Thongloun Sisoulith, Clinton discussed environmental protection, Laos’s entry to the World Trade Organization and the reintegration of ethnic minority Hmong people who fled to Thailand in 2009, according to the statement. The U.S. resettled 130,000 Hmong who fled to Thailand from 1975 to 1996, according to the State Department.

Unauthorized by Congress, U.S. planes dropped the equivalent of one plane-load of bombs over Laos every eight minutes, 24 hours a day, between 1964 and 1973, according to the non-profit Virginia-based advocacy group, Legacies of War.

Unexploded Bombs

Intended to stop communist ground incursions and disrupt North Vietnamese traffic along the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the bombings left Laos the most heavily bombed country per capita in history. One ton of bombs was dropped for every man, woman, and child in Laos at the time.

Today, an estimated one third of land remains unusable because of unexploded ordnance, making it unavailable for food production or development, according to Legacies of War. In the 40 years since the war ended, 20,000 people have been killed or maimed by dormant explosives hidden in the soil.

Clinton’s visit demonstrates that she “recognizes that bringing along the less developed countries of the lower Mekong region is key for stability and development in the region,” Brett Dakin, head of Legacies of War’s board of directors, said in an e-mail. “However,” he said, “Laos will not reach its full potential as long as much of its land is still contaminated with unexploded bombs.”

To contact the reporters on this story: Nicole Gaouette in Washington at ngaouette@bloomberg.net; Daniel Ten Kate in Phnom Penh at dtenkate@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Brinsley at jbrinsley@bloomberg.net

Was quoted by the Vientiane Times as saying: Laos unveils strategy on Xayaboury dam

Laos vows to address concerns over Mekong river dam

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-18737879

6 July 2012 Last updated at 10:11 ET

Critics say the dam would harm the Mekong river’s eco-system

Laos will not press ahead with the construction of a controversial dam on the Mekong river until environmental issues have been resolved, state-run media report.

The government says two big issues – fish migration and sediment flow – will be addressed, the Vientiane Times says.

Critics say the hydro-electric dam project at Xayaburi would harm the river’s eco-system.

Environmentalists say work has already began on the project.

“We plan to invite development partners and Mekong River Commission [MRC] member countries to visit the project site so they can see the actual development for themselves,” Viraphonh Viravong, Laos deputy minister of energy and mines, was quoted by the Vientiane Times as saying.

“The Xayaboury project will develop one of the most transparent and modern dams in the world,” he said, adding that the government had hired two independent consultants to review the project.

He said that changes were being planned to make sure that most of the fish would be able to pass through the dam.

In April, a multi-billion dollar contract was signed for a Thai company, CH Karnchang, to build the dam.

But critics fear the Xayaburi dam and power station project would open the door to a building spree, degrading the Mekong’s fragile ecology and associated fishing industries.

The Lao government had earlier said it had not decided whether to go ahead with damming the Mekong.

—

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Related Internet links

• Vientiane Times

—

Laos unveils strategy on Xayaboury dam

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source:  http://www.vientianetimes.org.la/FreeContent/FreeConten_Laos_unveils.htm

Laos will not undertake any construction of the Xayaboury dam in the mainstream Mekong River until it has addressed all concerns over the possible impacts of the country’s largest hydropower plant.

“We plan to invite development partners and Mekong River Commission (MRC) member countries to visit the project site so they can see the actual development for themselves,” Deputy Minister of Energy and Mines Mr Viraphonh Viravong said in an exclusive interview with Vientiane Times yesterday.

“The Xayaboury project will develop one of the most transparent and modern dams in the world,” he added.

Mr Viraphonh said there are two major issues – fish migration and sediment flow – which neighbouring countries and environmentalists have expressed concern over and want the government to address before building the first dam in the lower Mekong basin.

He said the Lao government had hired two independent international consultants to review the project design, with the aim of convincing neighbouring countries that there is no cross-border environmental impact.

The independent consultants, Poyry and Companie Nationale du Rhone, have advised the government to modify the dam, which will be equipped with comprehensive fish passage facilities to ensure that 85 percent of fish can pass through the dam in accordance with MRC guidelines.

The consultants also advised that the dam must be equipped with a sediment flushing system, to ensure the flushing through of all sediments, which are an essential component of aquatic feed and fertiliser, Mr Viraphonh said. Once the government is convinced that it has addressed all the concerns of neighbouring countries and development partners, the project will revert to its normal construction schedule, he added.

He said the Lao government had kept its promise not to undertake construction in the mainstream river. However, he said geological sub-surface investigations were being carried out in the Mekong River.

“The project developer is drilling rocks in the Mekong River for study,” he said, adding that the work is part of the hydropower plant detail re-designing process. The geological investigations should not harm the river in any way, nor pose any threat to people who live along the Mekong downstream, so Mekong member countries and environmentalist groups should not worry about the project development impact.

Mr Viraphonh said the developer has built roads and other facilities near the planned dam site, adding that these are on land and should not have any negative impact on the Mekong downstream.

He said people who lived in the area were happy that roads were being built and they could benefit from improved public infrastructure.

He re-iterated the fact that, although the government has completed the Prior Consultation process in accordance with the 1995 MRC requirements, it has not started any construction work in the mainstream river.

By Times Reporters
(Latest Update July 06, 2012)

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