Mekong dam threatens to drain lifeblood of region

The 4,000 Island region in southern Laos, named after the myriad islets that poke from the Mekong’s murky waters, boasts idyllic, undeveloped villages surrounded by small rice fields and forest swathes. The lack of hustle and bustle is precisely what draws foreign tourists. An estimated 113,684 visited Champasak Province in 2006.

The southernmost tip of the islands offer a refuge for the critically endangered Irrawaddy dolphin, numbered at just 10 in Laos, as well as some famous waterfalls. Yet this area, just two kilometres from Cambodia, is also home to the Hoo Sahong channel, where the controversial Don Sahong Dam will be built starting this month, according to the Laos government. It sees the 260-megawatt structure as a way for this developing country to capitalise on its hydrological energy for export. However, environmental experts warn the region could lose not only its dolphins and tourists, but also the massive fish migrations that feed its people.

The Hoo Sahong is said to be the only viable transit point for large numbers of fish during the low-river phase of the dry season, impacting not just Laos but countries downstream like Cambodia.

Boun Sayavong, a tourism operator on Don Det, a popular island just west of the site, said he is not concerned about losing dolphins or fish. He said the government is preparing for dam construction by banning the use of wooden fish traps known as Ly, which are placed along the numerous channels between the islands to catch fish as they migrate.

When asked how fishermen will survive without their traps, he said they have other ways to catch fish. “Only those people without jobs are unhappy about the dam.”

“The government asked people by survey and 60 per cent said [the dam] is a good idea. Only 40 per cent said they didn’t like the idea. It is not like Cambodia, where the government decides without asking the people,” said Boun.

However, Ian Baird, a US-based Mekong fisheries expert who lived in Laos for several years and is fluent in the language, said he was not aware of any government survey. “Nobody would dare say they don’t support the project. I know the villages there well. Of course they can’t say anything as they have been warned” by government officials not to.

Ame Trandem of the non-governmental organisation International Rivers agrees. “Most people are careful to say only positive things about the dam in public but once we spend time with them, away from other villagers and once they trust us, they pass their concerns when we tell them won’t use their names.”

Villagers told Trandem that preliminary work began this summer. A nearby channel has been blasted and villagers’ fish traps have been confiscated to create an alternative migration route for fish.

Mega First Corporation, the Malaysian company building the dam, alleges the fish passes it plans to install with the dam will be sufficient to maintain stocks.

Baird, who reviewed the previous Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) said: “In the EIA, they only ask fishermen the number of kilos they caught, not which species. They are comparing fish in this region, which has 200 species, to migrating salmon in North America. I worked in this region for 15 years and published several academic articles. I can tell they don’t have a clue. They are consultants, guessing.”

The Diplomat requested comment from Mega First, but got no reply.

Fish migrate up the Mekong from Tonle Sap Lake once the dry season begins in November, which also heralds the beginning of the fishing season. Both Baird and Trandem warn the insufficient fish-channels would not allow for large-scale migrations and threaten food security for the millions of Laotians and Cambodians who rely on fish as their main protein source.

Baird said the sharp reduction of wildlife in the region helps explain why both countries have rates as high as 40 per cent for child malnutrition.

While people in Laos may hold their tongues, in Cambodia they are speaking out. Around the Sesan, Srepok and Sesong tributaries of the Mekong in remote northeast Cambodia, a rights group formed by locals has been protesting against Vietnam’s dams since 2001. When Vietnam dammed the Yali Falls upstream of the Sesan River in 1996, initial releases of excess water from the dam without warning  caused numerous deaths downstream. The region suffered severely and without compensation from violent and irregular floods that wiped out crops and livestock. Residents along the Sesan River told the Diplomat that there are now hardly any fish in the river. Meach Mean, a local resident and member of the 3SRivers Protection Network, said rivers are the livelihoods of the Khmer, Laotian, Chinese and indigenous tribes living in the watershed. “We need the rivers for farming too,” explained Meach. Rivers expand during the wet season, bringing agricultural land to life through irrigation to grow rice, another staple of both Cambodia and Laos.

Trandem, who used to live in Cambodia’s Ratanakiri region, said people there didn’t even know about the dam upstream, and thought water-release floods were caused by angry river spirits. Vietnam is now required to notify Cambodia prior to releases, but she said sometimes the process takes 14 days, reaching remote villages after they have been flooded.

About 1,000 people in the three rivers’ region have also reportedly died from problems with water quality. “Toxicity can result from blue-green algae growing in reservoirs and released downstream. It harms fish, animals and people.” Trandom has no doubt that livestock have died from drinking poisoned water. “People rely on the river for everything – fishing, bathing, farming and to water livestock.”

According to Trandem, Vietnam has now cancelled 400 hydropower projects, which she hopes will be a lesson for Laos and Cambodia. While the impacts from the upper Sesan Dams are striking, the Mekong is even more vital to the region. But the benefits of hydro-power dams are tempting.

Ironically, Cambodia buys electricity from the very country that will impact its food security as it does not have an electricity grid, as Baird points out, while Laos has a basic grid. Residents in Stung Treng and northeast Cambodia told the Diplomat their electricity was imported from Laos and sold by private companies at prices ranging from 2,000 to 3,500 riel (Bt16-Bt24) per kilowatt per hour. Residents in Banlung, Ratanakiri said Cambodia also buys electricity from Vietnam, as the small Ouchum hydrological dam nearby can’t provide enough to meet the city’s needs. According to the World Bank, only 26 per cent of Cambodians have access to government-supplied electricity; the rest use private operators, generators or none at all. Electricity does not even reach Ratanakiri’s remote indigenous villages, which get no benefit from the dams, Meach added. 

Meach said Mega First Corp also has links with Cambodia’s popular Angkor Beer, brewed by Cambrew. Cambrew is jointly owned by the Carlsberg Group. He urges local and foreign consumers to support the Mekong’s preservation by boycotting Carlsberg and Angkor beer.

While choosing a different beer might take money away from Mega First, in the meantime electricity-starved northern Cambodia will still need to buy from its upstream neighbours. But it seems the Laotian government’s efforts to get neighbours on board the project have backfired. Trandem said a visit by Cambodian and Vietnamese government officials last week to the Don Sahong project site left an impression that the environmental impact assessment was not comprehensive. “Since the site visit, Cambodia has sent out a statement demanding dam construction halt and an impact assessment be done.”

 

Michelle Tolson is a freelance journalist based in Asia.