Laos Chided for Lack of Sustainability in Dams

Laos Chided for Lack of Sustainability in Dam

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source: http://www.rfa.org/english/news/laos/dam-03142013184331.html

2013-03-14

Biosphoto. Crops grow along the Mekong River in Pakse, Laos during the dry season, Jan. 31, 2012.

The government of Laos must devise a comprehensive plan for the development of dams in the land locked country, a local activist said Thursday, as villagers downstream along the key Mekong River express concern that the new Xayaburi dam will adversely affect farming and fishing.

Ittiphon Khamsouk, a representative of eight riparian provinces along the Mekong River, told RFA’s Lao Service that he does not oppose the construction of dams in Laos, but wants the government to form a plan of action that will result in more sustainable use of the country’s river systems.

“I do not mean stopping all dam construction, but the government should better consider which dam should be built where, and which dam should not,” Khamsouk said Thursday in marking International Day of Action for Rivers.

“They must consider which dam should be built first and which should be built later,” he said.

“The government needs a development plan.”

Khamsouk said that one example of a dam project that the Lao government has not thoroughly evaluated is the Xayaburi dam, which will become the first dam to be built across the mainstream of the Mekong River.

Resource-starved Laos, which has a total of over 70 dams under construction or in the planning or considerations stages, is aiming to become the “battery” of Southeast Asia by selling hydroelectric power to its neighbors.

But it has drawn ire for pushing forward with the U.S. $3.5 billion Xayaburi hydropower dam without first getting regional consensus from downstream neighbors concerned about the project’s transboundary impact.

According to Khamsouk, activists in Thailand, which sits downstream on the Mekong from the Xayaburi dam, had planned a number of protests against the project in several provinces throughout the country to mark International Day of Action for Rivers.

He said dam experts and villagers who live along the Mekong were to gather at forums in the capital Bangkok, as well as in Ubon and Loei provinces, where they will exchange information about how the Xayaburi and other upstream dams in China are likely to impact riparian communities.

In addition, he said, Thai senators and experts were to meet this week to discuss filing a lawsuit against the Thai government, calling for a cancellation of its power purchase agreement with Laos’s Xayaburi Power Co. An earlier agreement would send 95 percent of the dam’s electricity to Thailand when the dam becomes operational.

The 1,260-megawatt Xayaburi is the first of 12 dams to be built on the Lower Mekong River.

Riparians affected

Thai villagers have recently complained that their fishing and farming has already been affected by what they allege is the opening and closing of Chinese dams upstream on the Mekong and say that the Xayaburi will exacerbate the problem.

One riparian villager, who gave his surname as Khaew, said access to water from the Mekong had become increasingly unpredictable, making reliance on planting crops like rice, chilies, tomatoes, corn, eggplant, lettuce, and other vegetables, a risky business.

“After China completed its [first of four hydropower] dams on the Mekong in 1993, the way of life for Mekong riparian communities was changed forever,” Khaew said.

“Crops used to be planted in January, February, and March, but now they can’t be planted because we don’t know when water will come, or if it will come,” he said, adding that recently the Mekong had dropped to between 2-3 meters (6-10 feet) compared to a normal depth of 12 meters (40 feet).

“This causes difficulties for farmers, affecting their work and family finances. When they can’t grow vegetables, they have no income.”

The average annual income of Thai villagers living along the Mekong River is around 28,325 baht (U.S. $950).

Khaew said that the dry season in Thailand had come earlier than usual this year and had been drier than usual. But sometimes, he said, the water level would rise rapidly.

Farmers in the area believe that the changes are a result of China opening and closing its dams in a bid to generate electricity.

“Sometimes there is too little water, but sometimes the water streams so fast that it floods our crops on the river bank,” Khaew said.

A farmer from Nongkhai province who gave his surname as Tom said that the season was particularly unusual this year, with the Mekong drying up as early as December. He said villagers are worried that the Xayaburi will make things even worse.

“Usually, the Mekong River begins drying up in February, March, and April, but for the past two to three years it has already dried up by the end of November or early December,” he said.

“The four dams that China has built must have closed their water gates to generate electricity—that’s why the water is drying up.”

Fish farmers, who breed in floating stands on the Mekong, say their businesses have also been hit as a result of the lowered river levels, which they say causes higher water temperatures that kill their stocks.

“When the water is shallow, it causes fish to die,” said a fish farmer from Nakhone Phanom province who spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The water was never as low as it is presently. Now it is so dry and the water is so shallow. When the water levels shrink, it becomes hot.”

According to data from the Thai government, at least 562 families in nine villages of five northeastern provinces lived along the Mekong River in 2012. Mekong flooding damaged around 70 percent of crops in the villages, while drought on the Mekong destroyed about 40 percent of crops last year.

Action for Rivers

In an article published by the Bangkok Post on Thursday, Pianporn Deetes, Thailand Campaign Coordinator with the California-based International Rivers, said that as countries open up to free trade and try to boost trans-border investment, corporate giants in Asia have jostled with one another to exploit smaller, resource-rich countries like Laos, Cambodia, and Burma.

“As investors, with support from their governments, seek only to maximise profits, they pay little attention to the impacts on local villagers and river ecology,” she said in an editorial highlighting the 16th anniversary of International Day of Action for Rivers.

“They seem to forget that environmental problems have no boundaries and they, too, cannot avoid the negative consequences of their own projects.”

She said that a number of studies indicate that the Xayaburi dam, if built, will severely curtail the fish populations of the Mekong and that the project, along with the other 11 dams planned for the river “will deal a heavy blow to 2.1 million people and the environment” while only generating 11 percent of the region’s power demand.

Reported by RFA’s Lao Service. Translated by Bounchanh Mouangkham. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.

Laos: Mekong giant catfish, other species threatened by Laos dam

Mekong giant catfish, other species threatened by Laos dam

February 6, 2013 2:12 pm

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source:  http://www.nationmultimedia.com/aec/Mekong-giant-catfish-other-species-threatened-by-L-30199469.html

Photo: EPA

A planned dam on the Mekong River in Laos promises to disrupt the reproductive cycle of the giant catfish, one of the world’s largest freshwater fish, but experts disagree on how best to help it.

The Xayaburi hydroelectric dam will stand in the way of the Pangasianodon gig as, thought to migrate hundreds of kilometres from the Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia to spawn near Chiang Khong in northern Thailand, after passing through Xayaburi province in northern Laos.

Cambodia and Vietnam, downstream of the project, have expressed concern over potential impact on fish migration and sediment flows.

Both countries have urged that the 3.5-billion-dollar dam – the first on the Lower Mekong – be postponed until the impact has been thoroughly evaluated.

Studies are underway, but Laos and its Thai partners are proceeding with construction, scheduled for completion in 2019.

The design includes a fish ladder: a series of watery shelves alongside the dam that allow migrating species to make their way upstream and past the obstacle.

But experts fear the giant catfish, which can grow to 3 metres and300 kilograms, will be unable to use it.

“Giant catfish need deep water to migrate,” Naruepon Sukumasavin, fisheries ecology expert at Thailand’s Department of Fisheries, said. “It will be impossible for the catfish to pass.” Lao officials claim to have adapted the design for larger fish.

“A lot of experts suggested that giant catfish move at the bottom of the river, and thus migration, if any, would be at the bottom of the Mekong and that’s why a fish lift was added to the system,” said Viraphonh Viravong, vice minister of energy and mines.

Fish lifts are located in the centre of the waterway, and work by mechanically hoisting the fish in a container of water to the top ofthe dam.

“I don’t think it will work,” said Naruepon. “It’s not like salmon that come thousands at a time. The giant catfish comes one or two at most, and how are you going to get it in the lift?” Experts say they still know very little about the migratory or mating habits of the giant catfish. But they agree the critically endangered species is vulnerable to changes in its habitat.

The population in the Mekong River has fallen 90 per cent over the past 50 years, due mainly to over fishing, according to Zeb Hogan, a large-fish expert at University of Nevada in the United States.

“The Mekong giant catfish is one of the most, if not the most, vulnerable to dams like the Xayaburi,” Hogan said.

Its sensitivity makes it a litmus test for other species in the river, ranked as the world largest inland fishery with a harvest of2.5 million tonnes annually, valued at about 3.6 billion dollars.

“The very real danger is that the Mekong giant catfish is the tip of the extinction iceberg, and that populations of many other species, including the most important fisheries species, will decline as more and more dams are built on the mainstream Mekong,” Hogansaid.

In Thailand, the fisheries department has had a successful breeding programme with catfish caught at Chiang Khong since 1984.

Over the past three decades, it has restocked the species in the kingdom’s reservoirs, rivers, lakes and even fish-farms.

Unlike Cambodia and Laos, where it is illegal to catch or eat, the giant catfish features widely on Thai menus, although fishing it fromthe Mekong itself has been banned for the three years.

“There are plenty of giant catfish harvested, in fact, we have an over-supply,” Naruepon said. “Everyone eats the catfish lemon grass soup, and fried spicy catfish.” But while the restocking program has succeeded, there is still no evidence that the giant catfish is reproducing naturally in the new habitats, and conservationists remain skeptical.

“The major flaw of nearly all captive breeding programs is that they fail to restore wild populations in the absence of a more comprehensive plan, including restocking, fisheries management, maintenance of environmental flows, and habitat restoration,” Hogan said.

“In the absence of a healthy, well-managed river, most captive breeding programs are a short-term solution to avoid species extinction.”

Thai firm says work at controversial Laos dam on schedule

Thai firm says work at controversial Laos dam on schedule

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/01/23/us-thailand-dam-chkarnchang-idUSBRE90M06J20130123

BANGKOK | Wed Jan 23, 2013 12:10am EST

(Reuters) – Thailand’s second-largest building contractor, Ch Karnchang Pcl (CK), said construction work at the controversial $3.5 billion Xayaburi dam in Laos was pushing ahead and it was on schedule to be completed in 2020.

Executive Vice-President Prasert Marittanaporn told reporters late on Tuesday that the hydropower dam on the Mekong River was about 10 percent completed.

Ch Karnchang has been criticized along with the Laotian government for racing ahead with construction of the dam in defiance of calls by Vietnam, Cambodia and activist groups for work to be suspended pending further studies into its environmental impact.

The company’s estimate of 10 percent completion lends weight to activists’ claims that Laos had never really halted work on the dam, despite repeated promises to its neighbors that it would wait until experts had carried out proper studies.

Construction of the Xayaburi dam officially started on November 7 last year. Prior to that, Ch Karnchang had insisted it had only worked on areas around the dam site, not on the river itself.

Vietnam and Cambodia are along the lower stretches of the 4,000-km (2,500-mile) Mekong. Environmentalist say the dam could wipe out fish species and block the movement of fertile silt, leading to a food crisis that would affect tens of millions of people in the region.

Ch Karnchang is the main contractor on the project. Its 50 percent owned subsidiary, Xayaburi Power Co, has received a 29-year concession from the government of Laos to operate the dam’s power plant.

Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia and Laos are bound by a treaty to hold inter-governmental consultations before building dams, although none has a veto.

Vietnam has for decades been Laos’ most influential political ally, but it has failed to convince the authorities there to stop the dam. Activists said on Friday that Vietnam and Cambodia had repeated their calls for construction to be stopped during heated talks last week.

Separately, Ch Karnchang Vice-President Prasert said the company expected to book revenue of 25 to 28 billion baht ($840-940 million) this year, up 20-30 percent from last year.

It has construction jobs in hand worth about 163 billion baht, which should contribute revenue for the next six or seven years, he added. ($1 = 29.74 baht)

(Reporting by Pisit Changplayngam; Writing by Khettiya Jittapong; Editing by Martin Petty and Michael Perry)

Environment

–

Related:

Laos Finally Called Out over Xayaburi Dam

Link:  http://thediplomat.com/asean-beat/2013/01/23/laos-finally-called-out-over-xayaburi-dam/

A River Trickles Through It: Laos’ Mekong Dam Draws Ire From Downstream Neighbors And Environmentalists

POLITICS:

A River Trickles Through It: Laos’ Mekong Dam Draws Ire From Downstream Neighbors And Environmentalists

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source: http://www.ibtimes.com/river-trickles-through-it-laos-mekong-dam-draws-ire-downstream-neighbors-environmentalists-1026360

BY Ryan Villarreal | January 19 2013 9:27 AM

Laos’ construction of a hydropower dam on the Mekong River has angered its downstream neighbors and raised concerns about the project’s social and environmental impacts.

Construction of the $3.5 billion Xayaburi Dam began last November. It is the first of 11 projects the Laotian government plans to build along the lower portion of the river, which passes through Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand.

Laos has drawn criticism from its Southeast Asian neighbors for beginning construction on the Xayaburi Dam without completing the consultation process through the Mekong River Commission, or MRC, an inter-governmental agency comprised of representatives from the four countries that manages the usage and development of the river.

Vietnam’s Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Hong Ha Tran spoke Wednesday at an MRC Council Meeting in Luang Prabang, Laos, and he questioned the wisdom of beginning the Xayaburi project before a thorough analysis of its impact was completed.

“The launching of the first mainstream hydropower project recently in the Lower Mekong Basin is causing concerns of the governments of the riparian [river-adjacent] countries in the region and the international community about its adverse impacts on downstream areas,” he said.

“While we are still trying to do the research to understand its impacts, each riparian country should show their responsibility by assuring that any future development and management of water resources proposed in the basin should be considered with due care and full precaution based on best scientific understanding of the potential impacts,” he added.

Vietnam has demanded that Laos halt construction on the Xayaburi dam, pending the completion of an environmental impact review agreed upon by the MRC in December 2011.

The MRC Development Partners, which is comprised of donor governments — including the U.S., Japan, Germany and France — that have invested in the Mekong River’s management, released a joint statement expressing concern about any damming of the river’s main channel, upon which the Xayaburi damn is being built.

“It is our consensus that building dams on the mainstream of the Mekong may irrevocably change the river and hence constitute a challenge for food security, sustainable development and biodiversity conservation,” the statement read, according to a press release from International Rivers, a global NGO that advocates for the conservation and sustainable development of river systems.

Extensive research has already shown that dams are extremely disruptive to river ecosystems and riparian communities on multiple levels.

Damming prevents fish migrations, which downstream communities depend on for food. It also prevents rivers from transporting sediments, “which are critical for maintaining physical processes and habitats downstream of the dam (including the maintenance of productive deltas, barrier islands, fertile floodplains and coastal wetlands),” according to International Rivers.

This has negative implications for farmland and fresh water wells used by communities along river systems.

While these impacts are being considered with the Xayaburi Dam, Laos is relatively free to continue construction unhindered. Under the statutes of the MRC, Laos is obligated to hold consultations with member governments on such projects, but members have no legal framework to prevent it from moving forward with any given one.

“In the absence of an agreement, other countries can disagree if they like, but this can’t stop Laos,” said Jian-hua Meng, a specialist in sustainable hydropower at the World Wildlife Fund, the Guardian reported. “The role of the MRC is now being questioned along with the level of investment put in the organization.”

RELATED

Xayaburi Dam Threatens Riverside…

Vietnam and Cambodia tell Laos to stop $3.5bn Mekong River dam project

Vietnam and Cambodia tell Laos to stop $3.5bn Mekong River dam project

Food security issues lead to disagreement over concerns that dam will hit livelihood of tens of millions

Click on the link to get more news and video from original source:  http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2013/jan/18/vietnam-cambodia-laos-mekong-dam

• Reuters
• guardian.co.uk, Friday 18 January 2013 07.50 EST

An abandoned toilet bowl sits on steps on the banks of the Mekong river, as a Laos fisherman fishes, at the river front of Vientiane. Photograph: Barbara Walton/EPA

Vietnam urged Laos to halt construction of a $3.5bn (£2.2bn) hydropower dam on Mekong River pending further study, environmental activists said on Friday.

Cambodia, downriver from the Xayaburi dam, accused Laos of failing to consult on the project, activists said. The Mekong River commission (MRC), made up of member states Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, held a three-day meeting in northern Laos to discuss river development projects.

The dam in northern Laos, the first of 11 planned for the lower Mekong River running through south-east Asia, threatens the livelihood of tens of millions who depend on the river’s aquatic resources, activists say.

“Vietnam requested that no further developments on the Mekong mainstream occur until the … dams study agreed upon at least year’s council meeting is completed,” International Rivers, an NGO devoted to river conservation, said in a statement.

“The Cambodian delegation asserted that Laos had misinterpreted the Mekong agreement.” Officials from Cambodia and Vietnam were not available for comment.

The MRC is bound by treaty to hold inter-governmental consultations before dams are built. But members have no veto.

“In the absence of an agreement, other countries can disagree if they like but this can’t stop Laos,” said Jian-hua Meng, a specialist in sustainable hydropower at the World Wildlife Fund. “The role of the MRC is now being questioned along with the level of investment put in the organisation.”

In December 2011, MRC member states agreed to conduct new environmental impact assessments before construction proceeded, but last August Ch Karnchang PCL, the Thai construction company behind the project, said it had resumed work.

A groundbreaking ceremony in November signalled the formal start of construction, said Meng.

Ch Karnchang’s 50%-owned subsidiary, Xayaburi Power Co, has received a 29-year concession from the Laotian government to operate the dam’s power plant and Thailand is set to buy 95% of the electricity generated.

Milton Osborne of the Lowy Institute, an Australian foreign policy thinktank, said Xayaburi marked a turning-point that would enable others to build their own dams, including Cambodia.

He described as a “monstrous disaster” a proposal for a Chinese power company to build a dam at Sambor in northeastern Cambodia, on a tributary of the Mekong. “It would be so disastrous, blocking one of the main fish migratory systems,” he said.

Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia share the lower stretches of the 2,500-mile (4,000km ) Mekong. Activists say dams could threaten food security in Cambodia and Vietnam.

The river provides up to 80% of the animal protein consumed in Cambodia and sediment and changes to river flow threaten the Mekong Delta, which contributes half of Vietnam’s agricultural GDP.

Cambodia approved its own hydroelectric dams in November.

A second Cambodian project, the Lower Sesan dam in northern Stung Treng province, is a joint venture between Cambodian, Chinese and Vietnamese companies. Campaigners say it would reduce the fish catch in a country with malnutrition issues.