Laos is pushing ahead with the construction of a second dam on the Mekong River after the first controversial Xayaburi dam, which will severely threaten the livelihoods of Vietnamese farmers. After months of preliminary construction at the dam site, Laos formally informed the Mekong River Commission (MRC) of its plans to build the dam beginning in November, using the organization’s “prior notification” procedures instead of the “prior consultation” process required for mainstream dams. Work on the main part of the Don Sahong hydropower dam in southern Laos is scheduled for commence by end-2014 after Laos secures financing for the $723-million project and contracts to sell electricity that is to be generated. Environmentalists warned that the 260-megawatt Don Sahong dam, like the underway Xayaburi project, poses a devastating threat to regional fisheries and food security and will adversely affect some 60 million riparian people, including those in Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand. It will also deeply impact flows and fish migration, and have immense transboundary implications, they added. Activists complained to the MRC that the project will affect people beyond the immediate vicinity of the dam, calling for further study of environmental impacts and consultation with other neighboring countries. Laos made the move despite objections from international environmental and civil society groups and protest from the neighboring country of Cambodia, which has asked Laos to halt the project and bring the project up for discussion with the MRC. Meanwhile, the governments of Thailand and Vietnam have made no response to the issue. Notably, the proposed Xayaburi dam, the first of 11 planned dams for the lower Mekong River running through Southeast Asia, will threaten the livelihood of tens of millions living on the river’s aquatic resources, activists said earlier. If the dam is built, the output of Vietnam fisheries will fall by 200,000-400,000 tons yearly, over 2,000 local people will possibly have to be resettled, and additional 200,000 people will be affected, experts warned. (www.rfa.org [1] Nov 12, thesaigontimes.vn)
