Cambodian officials will tour a massive dike-building project just over the border with Vietnam that has sparked fears of flooding in Cambodia.
The So Ha-Cai So Canal Improvement Project calls for dredging an existing canal and building a 57-km-long embankment just beyond the borders of Prey Veng and Svay Rieng provinces in Vietnam, according to Vietnamese official documents on the canal project.
Some 2,690 houses would be built atop the embankment to house families now living in flood-prone low-lying areas. The Vietnamese say it will help protect their people from the area’s annual flooding.
The project would help irrigate 19,000 hectares of land in Vietnam, according to its supporters.
But “if the project is not designed properly, it will cause floods in Cambodia,” said Pich Dun, deputy secretary-general of the Cambodian National Mekong Committee, which manages development along the Mekong River.
The project might back up water that would normally flow into Vietnam and drain out into the Mekong River, he said.
Some officials have blamed Vietnamese dam construction for an increase of the severity and death tolls in the annual floods over the last few years.
In the case of the So Ha-Cai So Canal project, the Vietnamese government has promised that there will be 20 spillways designed into the embankment to allow floodwaters to pass through, “but we are still concerned,” Pich Dun said.
The borders may also be uncertain in the area, he said. Vietnamese officials agreed to let Cambodian officials tour the project site during a Mekong River Commission meeting held earlier this month, said Sin Niny, vice-chair of the Cambodia National Mekong Committee.
The tour is scheduled to occur in August, when officials can observe the effects of flooding, he said. “This is a very, very good sign” of improved relations between the two countries, Sin Niny said.
Activists are concerned that the rapid and often haphazard pace of development in the region has jeopardized people living here.
