Lao dam plan challenges Mekong River Commission, WWF says

By : dpa
24 Sept, 2010

Laos' plan to build a hydropower dam on the Mekong River challenges the credibility of the Mekong River Commission, which was set up to assure five nations it flows through of benefits from river development, environmentalists warned Friday.

On Wednesday the Lao government notified the Mekong River Commission (MRC) of its proposal to build a hydropower dam on the river in Sayobouly province, northern Laos. The commission's secretariat has warned that with current technologies it would be impossible to build a dam on the lower Mekong without disrupting fish migration in the river.

The Mekong is the longest river in South-East Asia and passes through southern China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

The commission, whose membership includes the five lower-Mekong countries, but not China, is responsible for vetting projects to determine whether they might negatively impact the other counties.

"This dam is the greatest challenge the MRC has faced since it was formed," said Marc Goichot of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). "It is the most serious test of its usefulness and relevance."

WWF International has warned that the Sayobouly dam would block sediments and nutrients that flow to Vietnam's delta, and alter habitats downstream in Laos and Cambodia "potentially having devastating impacts on wild fisheries and causing the likely extinction of critically endangered Mekong giant catfish."

The Sayabouly dam is the first of the 11 proposed lower Mekong River dams to be vetted by member countries of the commission. China has already built four hydropower dams on the upper Mekong in Yunnan province and plans another four, despite the unknown impact on downstream nations Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Stimson Centre, a think tank, last month warned that if China's cascade of dams were completed, they could halt up to 70 per cent of the silt that is normally carried by the river to the lower Mekong countries, depriving them of nutrients.

The Mekong, which flows from the Tibetan plateau to southern Vietnam, feeds and employs up to 60 million people in the region.