Don Sahong dam to go through MRC process
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As a downstream country that could be affected by Laos' controversial Don Sahong Dam, Vietnam will push ahead for a comprehensive review on social and environmental impacts of the hydropower project on a main stream of the Mekong, an official said yesterd
A chance to do this opened last week when Laos agreed to have the dam project go through a formal process of prior consultation with neighbouring countries in the lower Mekong basin.
“The proposed project, more or less, would have an impact on a number of industries and bio-diversity, such as agriculture and fisheries, for countries downstream,” Le Duc Trung, director-general of the Vietnam National Mekong Committee, said in an interview over the weekend.
“We will organise consultation meetings with our people, with others at the regional level and I believe that Thailand, as a stakeholder, has done and will do more consultation meetings on the project,” he said.
Laos plans to build a hydropower dam with installed capacity of 260 megawatts on the Mekong River in Southern Champasak province, less than two kilometres from the Cambodian border.
Neighbouring countries that are also members of the Mekong River Commission (MRC), namely Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, have raised concerns over the environmental impact from the project.
The dam located at Hou Sahong in the Siphandone (Khone Falls) area, could block channels of fish migration in the Mekong River. It could obstruct the free flow of water to downstream Cambodia and Vietnam, where water from the Mekong is one of the major resources for fisheries and agriculture.
Laos has granted a concession to a Malaysian developer to invest in and conduct a feasibility study on the dam.
Authorities in Vientiane have submitted notification of the project to the MRC Secretariat but members said the notification was not enough.
The 1995 agreement does not require Laos to pass the project through the prior consultation process as Laos claims the dam would not be built exactly on the mainstream nor a tributary of the Mekong – just on a branch of the river.
However, with strong pressure from members, notably downstream states, as well as environmental groups and conservationists, Viraphone Viravong, Laos’ deputy minister of energy and mines, told a MRC meeting last week that Laos agreed to consult all stakeholders on the project.
“The Lao government already has demonstrated that it is committed to developing the Don Sahong project in a responsible and sustainable manner,” he said.
Laos has already submitted project documents to the MRC Secretariat and the secretariat would set up a working group to review them while members would give input.
Trung said Vietnam had studied the environmental and social impacts of dam projects on the Mekong and would provide input to the project during the consultation process.
Basically, the prior consultation process requires six months to implement but it could be extended if necessary, he said.
