Thread: Lao Dam Tests Regional Cooperation

The Lao push to build a third dam on the Mekong River’s mainstream presents the latest test for cooperation in Southeast Asia as fears rise that the Pak Beng dam will further damage the fragile ecosystem that some 60 million people depend on for a living.

The proposed 912 megawatt Pak Beng dam in the northern province of Oudomxay marks Vientiane’s latest move as it attempts to make the impoverished country the “battery of Asia” through construction of a series of hydro-electric dams along the Mekong River and its tributaries.

Laos notified the Mekong River Commission (MRC) of its intent to build the dam Nov. 4, but it’s unclear if the MRC has the power to address concerns over the project.

With the Xayaburi and Don Sahong dams, Laos went ahead with the projects despite the objections from the other countries, scientists and conservationists, and critics pummeled MRC for its inability to stem the dam-building tide.

The MRC saw its funding drastically reduced as international donors expressed their ire over what they saw as the commission’s complicity in Laos’ head-long pursuit of an energy strategy that causes harm to its neighbors.

Following the Xayaburi and Don Sahong dam debacle, the MRC was restructured giving Vietnam more influence, but questions still remain over the commission’s ability to manage the resource.

“By allowing regional consultation to begin over the Pak Beng Dam before addressing outstanding concerns around decision-making on Mekong dams, the MRC risks history repeating itself at the expense of the Mekong River and regional cooperation,” the environmental non-government organization International Rivers wrote in a press release.

International Rivers contends that the MRC’s “prior consultation” process fails to take into account the impact projects like the Pak Beng dam have on communities that depend on the river.

“The procedure lacks clear requirements to ensure the meaningful participation of affected communities and the public in the consultation process,” International Rivers said. “There is little transparency as to how concerns are addressed and factored into decision-making.”

Lessons learned

MRC Secretariat CEO Pham Tuan Phan said that the commission is up to the task.

“We have learned lessons from the previous two cases,” he said. “The Secretariat is ready to assist the member countries to review the project, assess technical aspects and come to a conclusion in an inclusive and meaningful way."

A high-ranking MRC official defended the commission, telling RFA that the organization follows the mandate given to it by the member countries.

“The MRC is not weak, but it just works under the 1995 agreement,” said the official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

On April 5, 1995, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam signed the Agreement on Cooperation for Sustainable Development of the Mekong River Basin that established the MRC as a platform for regional cooperation.

“Many people think the MRC has a mandate to decide whether or not a dam can be built,” said the official. “We don’t have that mandate or that right. If the country members want MRC have that mandate, they should change the agreement.”

While the MRC is often blamed for the multitude of woes that beset the Mekong River, the official told RFA the commission is acting as it was intended.

“Those who say MRC is meaningless don’t have enough information or they are just dead wrong,” the official said. “Our job is to give information and assessments. To build or not to build depends on the decision of the country members.”

Given the restrictive mandate placed on the MRC, the official told RFA the commission plans to take quick action on Pak Beng dam.

“We want to get it done very quickly because we want to publish the information about the possible impact from the dam; on how it will be built; how it will impact positively and negatively; and how people will react,” the official said.

Lao Dam Tests Regional Cooperation

More Alarms Over Next Hydropower Dam in Laos

The Laos government is pressing ahead with a new dam on the Lower Mekong River, leading scientists and activists to warn of growing threats to regional food security.

Laos informed the four-nation inter-governmental Mekong River Commission (MRC) earlier this month that preparatory work was under way on the 912-megawatt Pak Beng Dam in the northern province of Oudomxay.

Pak Beng would be the third dam on the lower Mekong mainstream under Lao control. The $3.5 billion Xayaburi Dam and the Don Sahong Dam near the border with Cambodia are part of 11 dams planned on the Lower Mekong river system.

Laos says construction of the dams is key to its long-term economic development, promoting the country as a “battery” of Asia, although regional sales of hydroelectricity are largely destined for neighboring Thailand.

Maureen Harris, Southeast Asia program director at non-government group International Rivers, says construction of the Pak Beng Dam increases the risk of damaging a critical river ecosystem that feeds 60 million people in the region.

“[The dam] will have significant impacts on the lower stretches of the river as the northernmost project on the cascade. It will have particular impacts on blocking sediment flows, but also impacts on fisheries. And our concerns are also around additional projects going ahead,” Harris told VOA.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) says the fisheries alone are worth an estimated $17 billion a year. “All economic activity in the region is directly or indirectly linked to the river and therefore vulnerable to changes to the river,” WWF said in a recent report.

On the upper reaches of the 4,300-kilometer Mekong River, China has built half a dozen dams with increasing concerns over the impact on vital nutrient-rich sediment flows downstream.

Robert Mather, a consultant and former Southeast Asia director for the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), says China plans to carry out major river navigation changes above the Lao township of Luang Prabang to allow for navigation of vessels of 500 deadweight tons (DWT).

The work would include destruction of dozens of rapids, rocks and shoals as well as dredging and construction of new ports at the same time the Pak Beng Dam construction is expected to be under way on the same stretch of river.

“It just illustrates the fact even at the level of these big projects there’s no coordination going on between them. And it’s just different agencies pushing their own agenda,” Mather told VOA.

Studies have predicted regional rice production falling due to the planned dams in Laos, trapping sediments, reducing nutrients and fish stocks by disrupting migratory breeding.

The people of the region are among the poorest in Southeast Asia - their lives dependent on fresh fish for food security.

Chris Barlow, a fisheries expert with the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) says once the dams are in place, the impact on fish stocks will be immediate.

“As soon as these mainstream dams are built in Laos, they will start to have an immediate impact on fisheries recruitment and therefore the size of fish populations,” Barlow said.

He warned the situation was leading to a regional food crisis.

“The time of government’s responding is over. It’s over in terms of maintaining the fisheries stocks - the only response is what else you do to try and replace that food supply,” Barlow added.

The Mekong River Commission (MRC) has come under criticism over its handling of debates over the river's planned extensive dam building.

MRC chief executive Pham Tuan Phan, in comments, said the commission’s role was a "platform" for cooperation, not a regulatory body. “The MRC is imperfect but it’s indispensable,” Phan told local media.

Activists say the MRC lacks influence over individual members, undermining its authority.

Robert Edis, ACIAR research program manager on soil and crop nutrition, says water flow reaching major agriculture producing regions, such as the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, would be hard hit.

“If the tap was turned off there would be insufficient water to grow non-rice crops in many areas,” Edis said.

“And there’s a lot of people who depend on that and there’s a lot of people for whom the buffer between adequacy and inadequacy is very small. So we’re not talking about people on abundant incomes or abundant food reserves,” he said.

International Rivers has called on the MRC to delay the consultation process for the Pak Beng Dam and suspend all construction activities to ensure transparency and public consultations.

More Alarms Over Next Hydropower Dam in Laos

Drowning out traditions

Despite little consultation, Laos and China forge ahead with the construction of the Pak Beng dam in Northwest Laos

The smiles that once brightened faces in Luangtong, a small community in Laos’ northwest Oudomxay province, have disappeared. These days the residents appear defeated, stunned by the knowledge that before long the land that has sustained them for generations will be submerged under the waters behind Pak Beng Dam.

Perched on the bank of Mekong River, Luangtong, which has around 370 residents according to the deputy village head, is surrounded by steep cliffs and pristine forest. The wooden houses are scattered over the small fertile plain between the mountains and the river and it is here that the villagers grow vegetables and fruit.

But the picturesque scenery and traditional lifestyle is about to vanish forever, to be replaced by the reservoir of the new hydroelectric dam to be built a few kilometres downstream by the Lao government, with Chinese investment.

Earlier the month The Nation spent time in the village talking to the locals about their feelings for a dam that will change their way of life forever while bringing them little benefit.

“We don’t want to move from our land. We want to stay here. This has been our home for generations,” said deputy village head Pheb Santitham, 64.

more Drowning out traditions

Laos Sees Little Problem With the Pak Beng Dam

Laos is pushing ahead with the controversial Pak Beng dam as the government has found little reason to delay the project on the Mekong River’s mainstream, a senior government official told RFA.

“Of course all development projects have side effects, but these effects are solvable,” Daovong Phonekeo, director-general of Lao Ministry of Energy and Mines, told RFA’s Lao Service in a recent interview.

“For example, some villagers will have to be relocated, but we will help them by building new roads, schools, and hospitals for the new villages,” he told RFA during a meeting of the Mekong River Commission (MRC) in Luang Prabang last week.

Phonekeo brushed aside criticisms that the 912-megawatt dam in Oudomxay province would harm the environment and lead to widespread dislocation.

“We have studied this project well and published the results,” he said. “According to our study, only 1,000 people will be affected and they will be compensated.”

Phonekeo’s estimates likely understate the impact of the Pak Ben dam and its sister projects on the Mekong, according to the environmental organization International Rivers.

International Rivers cites estimates that 6,700 people will have to be relocated, with 25 villages in Laos and two in Thailand directly affected by the project. Nearly all of the electricity generated by the dam is slated for export to Thailand.

The Pak Beng dam is the northernmost in a proposed cascade of eleven dams on the Mekong River’s mainstream. Laos and other Asian nations have been on a dam-building spree as they try to harness the power of the Mekong and other rivers.

Environmental experts say the building of so many dams threatens to turn most of the Mekong River into a series of interconnected lakes.

Scientific studies, including the MRC-commissioned Strategic Environmental Assessment on Mekong Mainstream Dams, indicate that building multiple dams on stretches of the river would greatly increase the impact on fisheries, sediment, and hydrological flows.

While the Lao government sees power generation as a way to bootstrap the country’s economy, the projects are still controversial for their environmental impact and their financial arrangements.

But Phonekeo said the Pak Beng dam will help Laos as Vientiane pursues an economic plan that would turn the country into a major power exporter and serve as “the battery for Southeast Asia.”

“The Lao government has already decided to go ahead with the project because it is a good project,” he said. “It will turn water into be a useful resource instead of letting water flow down the river uselessly. We want to make this resource more valuable.”

Laos Sees Little Problem With the Pak Beng Dam