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

Laos defies neighbours’ objections to construction of Mekong dam

By Jonathan Manthorpe, Vancouver Sun November 14, 2011

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Laos+defies+neighbours+objections+construction+Mekong/5706089/story.html

The government of Laos is showing increasing determination to build the controversial Xayaburi dam on the Mekong River despite persistent objections and warnings of disastrous consequences from neighbouring countries, international donors and environmental groups.

Laos has already been accused of starting preliminary construction on dam infrastructure in defiance of a decision in April by the Mekong River Commission (MRC) – of which Laos is a member along with Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam – to delay approval of Xayaburi until there is consensus.

Now the Vientiane government is being accused of commissioning a fraudulent report to “greenwash” the dam’s failings ahead of an MRC meeting early next month to further debate the $3.5-billion Xayaburi project.

A report last week by the California-based International Rivers organization accuses the Lao government of using a carefully fashioned report by the Swiss company Poyry Energy AG to back its case for approval of the Xayaburi dam.

The Poyry report is accused of falsely asserting that all necessary impact assessments have been done and that Laos has completed the consultation process necessary for approval.

International Rivers also points out that Poyry Energy is suspiciously close to the Xayaburi project.

The company is a partner in another project in Laos with the Thai construction company, Ch. Karnchang, that has been contracted by the Lao government to build Xayaburi.

And, says International Rivers, the Poyry report sidesteps or ignores the failure of the project to comply with dozens of guidelines or requirements set out by the MRC.

The report, says International Rivers, fails to adequately address concerns raised by the MRC, whose own review of the project calculated it would block fish migration on the Mekong, threaten between 23 and 200 fish species, have damaging effects on sediment flows and put unpredictable pressures on ecosystems around the river.

More than 60 million people live in the river basin of the lower Mekong and about two-thirds of those depend on fishing for all or part of their livelihood.

In Cambodia people depend on 80 per cent of the protein in their diet from fish caught in the Mekong or the associated great lake, the Tonle Sap.

But the MRC reckons that 30 per cent of the protein sources, up to 365,000 tonnes of fish per year, in Laos and Cambodia could be threatened by the Xayaburi dam, the first on the lower Mekong.

It is because Xayaburi is the first of 12 dams planned for the lower Mekong – China has built several on the upper reaches in its territory without any consultation with neighbours – that the approval process is so contentious.

The process is being seen as a precedent for the other 11 planned dams.

There’s a lot of money involved.

Laos, one of the poorest countries in Southeast Asia, plans to sell the electricity from the 1,260-megawatt Xayaburi dam to northeastern Thailand.

If all six of the 12 Mekong dams that are planned for Laos are built, the country could call in at least $2.5 billion a year in revenue.

But an environmental impact study done for the MRC estimates that the damage to fishery and agricultural industries on the Mekong of the 12 dams could reach $500 million a year.

There are already signs that the dams built by China and others on tributaries of the Mekong have affected water flows and fish-migration patterns.

The Mekong system is the world’s largest inshore fishery, but there are reports of declining stocks and variations in the river’s intricate relationship with the Tonle Sap lake, which should ensure constant water flows in the lower reaches of the Mekong and yearround harvests in the delta in Vietnam.

jmanthorpe@vancouversun.com

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Laos to Delay Mekong Dam After Failing to Convince Neighbors

View Original Source:  http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-04-19/laos-seeks-to-gain-neighbors-approval-for-3-8-billion-mekong-river-dam.html

By Daniel Ten Kate – Apr 19, 2011 6:56 AM ET

Bloomberg Markets Magazine

Cambodian children wash their animals in the Mekong River

Laos agreed to delay proceeding with a $3.8 billion hydropower dam because of concerns among neighboring Mekong River countries that the project would disrupt fish catches and rice production downstream.

Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand will consider the project at another meeting with environment ministers “as they could not come to a common conclusion,” according to a joint statement after representatives met in Vientiane to consider the project. The next meeting will take place “as soon as possible,” Te Navuth, a Cambodian official who chaired today’s meeting, told reporters by phone from the Lao capital.

The Thai-financed Xayaburi hydropower plant is the first of about 10 dams the government plans to build on the mainstream Mekong, which runs from China’s Tibetan plateau through Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Laos’s government can make a final decision on whether to proceed with the dam at any time.

Failure to build the dam may hinder the efforts of Southeast Asia’s smallest economy to use its resources to boost incomes for its 6 million citizens who comprise Asia’s youngest population. Hydropower and mining projects are set to underpin gross domestic product growth that may reach 7.7 percent this year, the Asian Development Bank said in an April 7 report.

Laos proposed today 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. Vietnam recommended that all planned hydropower projects on the Mekong be delayed for 10 years.

Vietnam Opposition

“The deferment should be positively seen as a way to provide much-needed time for riparian governments to carry out comprehensive and more specific quantitative studies on all possible cumulative impacts,” Le Duc Trung, head of the Vietnamese delegation, said in a statement.

Thailand questioned the dam’s sustainability, while Cambodia called for more studies on the project, according to the statement from the Mekong River Commission, an intergovernmental body that hosted the meeting.

“We appreciate all comments, but we will consider to accommodate all concerns,” Viraphonh Viravong, head of the Lao delegation, said in the statement.

The Mekong and its tributaries provide food, water and transportation to about 60 million people in those four countries. U.S. Senator Jim Webb said April 15 that approval of the dam could cause “irreversible” damage and threaten the stability of Southeast Asia.

Thai Construction

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 percent stake in the 115 billion baht ($3.8 billion) project.

Ch. Karnchang shares have fallen 6.3 percent this year, compared with a 5.5 percent gain in Thailand’s benchmark SET Index. The Laos Composite Index, which opened on Jan. 11 with two stocks, has gained 34 percent since then.

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

The Xayaburi plant will help “to secure and to stabilize” Thailand’s energy supply over the long term, Prasert Bunsumpun, president of state-owned PTT, said in the statement.

Giant Catfish

A technical review by the commission released last month 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.

China has already built four hydropower dams on the Mekong, completing the first one in 1993 without consulting its downstream neighbors. It plans to build four more as part of efforts to almost double its hydropower capacity to at least 300 gigawatts by 2020.

Laos also plans to sell electricity from dams to Vietnam as an alternative to nuclear power, Daovong Phonekeo, deputy director general of Laos’s Department of Electricity, said by phone yesterday. Vietnam, which faced rolling electricity outages in February, last year announced plans to build as many as 13 nuclear power plants with a capacity of 16,000 megawatts over the next two decades.

“We are trying to benefit not only our country, but also develop a cheap source of electricity for our neighbors,” Daovong said. “Each riparian country has the right to use the Mekong River for its own development.”

To contact the reporter on this story: Daniel Ten Kate in Bangkok at dtenkate@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Peter Hirschberg at phirschberg@bloomberg.net

Laos accused of starting work on controversial Mekong dam – Loas has been accused of starting work on the controversial Mekong dam without formal approval

View Original Source:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/laos/8462511/Laos-accused-of-starting-work-on-controversial-Mekong-dam.html

7:00AM BST 20 Apr 2011

Photo: BBC. A man braves the raging torrent in the Mekong River in Laos.

Environmentalists opposed to the construction on one of Asia’s most important rivers have accused the authorities of going ahead with plans to build roads and remove villagers, the Independent reports.

Environmentalists claim the dam could lead to the extinction of endangered fish and adversely affect 60 million people.

“Local people say that work, particularly on road construction, began several months ago,” Pianporn Deetes, a Bangkok-based activist with International Rivers, told the paper.

Laos is under pressure to delay construction of a the dam.

Officials from Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam have met in Vientiane to discuss the planned $3.8-billion (£2.3bn) Xayaburi hydropower project in northern Laos, which would have a capacity of 1,260 megawatts.

Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam raised worries about insufficient environmental studies into the dam’s likely impact, according to a statement after the meeting, while Laos said there was no need for further consultation.

Vietnam in particular expressed “deep and serious concerns” about a lack of adequate assessments, calling for the deferment of planned hydropower projects on the mainstream Mekong for at least 10 years.

The four member states of the Mekong River Commission, an intergovernmental body, have an agreement to cooperate on the sustainable development of the waterway and have been in consultations over the Xayaburi project.

But the final decision on the dam rests with Laos, which seems determined to press ahead.

Laos state media has signalled that construction was expected to begin soon, saying the Laos government “has full rights” to decide whether to approve construction of the dam.

The wildlife organisation WWF has warned that the Mekong giant catfish, one of the world’s biggest freshwater fish, could be driven to extinction if plans to build hydropower dams on the river go ahead.

More about Laos>>>>>>>>>>>

Conservationists protest Mekong dam – Laotian hydroelectric plan tests power of river commission

View Original Source:  http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110408/full/news.2011.220.html

By Jane Qiu

Conservationists worry that Laotian plans for six dams on the Mekong River will damage biodiversity and disrupt downstream communities. Marco Casiraghi / Cuboimages / Photolibrary

Controversy is building over a proposed new hydroelectric dam on the Mekong River in Laos, as the deadline for reaching a decision on the project approaches.

The Xayaburi dam is the first of eight that Laos hopes to build on the river.

“Xayaburi would be the first dam on the Mekong main channel outside China,” says Ame Trandem, a Bangkok-based campaigner from the environmental group International Rivers.

“What happens to Xayaburi will essentially determine the future of the Mekong — and a string of other dams that are being planned.”

On Tuesday, about 400 people gathered in northeast Thailand to protest against the project, which they believe would have an adverse impact on their lives, according to The Nation, an English language website covering news in the country.

About 95% of the electricity generated by the dam would be sold to Thailand and local conservationists plan to petition Abhisit Vejjajiva, the Thai Prime Minister, urging him to block plans to purchase electricity from the project.

The Xayaburi plans have been under way since 2007, when CH Karnchang, a construction company based in Bangkok, proposed building a 1,260-megawatt dam at the Kaeng Luang rapids on the main channel of the Mekong River, 30 kilometres from Xayaburi in northern Laos — an important spawning site for several migratory fish species, including the critically endangered Mekong giant catfish (Pangasianodon gigas). A planned cascade of six dams in northern Laos, including Xayaburi, would ultimately block 69% of the fish habitat.

Projected to be 810 metres wide and 32 metres tall, and to cost over US$3 billion, the Xayaburi dam would have a reservoir of 49 square kilometres.

Over 2,000 people would have to be relocated to make room for the dam and reservoir. Many conservationists fear that the project could block fish migration, trap river sediments, devastate biodiversity and diminish seasonal flooding that sustains floodplain farming.

Approval needed

Last September, the Laotian government submitted the proposal for the Xayaburi dam to the Mekong River Commission (MRC), an intergovernmental body responsible for the sustainable management of the river. The commission is obliged to reach a decision by 22 April.

But the MRC is not well-disposed towards new dams. A few weeks after it received the Laotian proposal, the commission published its first comprehensive analysis of the potential impact of 12 proposed hydropower projects on the Mekong mainstream — a review that was 16 months in the making. The Strategic Environmental Assessment concludes that “decisions on mainstream dams should be deferred for a period of ten years” because the risks of potential environmental and economic impact are beyond the capacity of the governments to address¹.

And in late March, the MRC released its expert review of the documents submitted by the Laotian government, including the government’s environmental impact assessment (EIA)². The conclusions were scathing.

The review highlights considerable uncertainties and knowledge gaps in the proposal. It says that the scale of the government’s EIA, which covered a radius of 10 kilometres seriously underestimates the ecological and social impact of the dam, while overestimating the effectiveness of mitigation measures such as fish-pass facilities.

Toothless tiger

But the commission is seen by some as toothless. For example, says Trandem, the Yali Falls dam in Vietnam on the Sesan River, a tributary of the Mekong, has compromised the livelihood of downstream communities in Cambodia over the decade since its reservoir was filled, demonstrating the MRC’s “inability to effectively resolve the conflict”.

And two countries that also share the Mekong, China and Myanmar, are not full members of the commission. Without them, the MRC will remain “an amputated river basin organization”, says Edward Grumbine, an expert on environmental policy at the Chinese Academy of Sciences Kunming Institute of Botany in Yunnan province, in an article published in Science³ this week.

“Individual countries have the responsibility to give up some of their decision making and learn how to share the resources in a cooperative and transboundary way and do the best thing for every country and for the river,” he told Nature.

Many say that the region’s enthusiasm for hydropower development is driven by China’s behaviour upstream of the Mekong River and its investment in many of the proposed dams. The country has four hydropower stations in operation on the river and, on 25 March, confirmed that it is building a fifth. More are planned.

“China has set the pace for hydropower development in the region,” says Grumbine. “Other countries now have a role model.”

As the 22 April deadlines approaches, “the authority of the MRC is also being put to the test”, says Grumbine. Some fear that Laos is so determined to build the dam that it may press ahead with the project even if the commission rejects its proposal.

“That would be an utterly reckless and irresponsible behaviour,” says Trandem.

• References

  1. International Centre for Environment Management Strategic Environmental Assessment of Hydropower on the Mekong Mainstream (MRC, 2010). Here
  2. Mekong River Commission Secretariat Prior Consultation Project Review Report (MRC, 2011). Here
  3. Grumbine, R. E. & Xu, J. Science 332, 178-179 (2011).