Vietnam has started construction of a new dam near Cambodia’s northeastern border, spurring fears of more flooding and more damage to Cambodian villagers’ health and fishing grounds.
Vietnamese officials say the new dam, situated on the Se San river about 50 km upstream of the border, will have a positive effect on river flows. But Cambodian and some NGO officials are alarmed that Vietnam has begun construction on the dam before starting a study on its environmental impact.
“If we haven’t started the [Environmental Impact Assessment], why has Vietnam started to implement the project?” asked Sin Niny, vice-chairman of the Cambodia Mekong National Committee, which manages development along the Mekong River.
Sin Niny said he would discuss the matter with Vietnamese representatives during a meeting of the Joint Committee of the Mekong River Commission, which started Wednesday and concludes today.
An official with the Vietnam National Mekong Committee said Wednesday that the government last month began construction of a road to the dam site and shelters for workers.
The government will construct the dam and do the environmental and river flow surveys simultaneously in a “parallel process,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The surveys will take a few months while dam construction would require about two years, giving time for construction to be modified depending on the surveys’ findings, he said.
Asked if the surveys might find that the dam was not worth building, he said: “I don’t think so.” He said the dam would regulate seasonal river flows, reducing flooding during the wet season and drought during the dry season.
But the so-called Se San 3 dam has engendered fierce opposition from NGOs and from villagers in Stung Treng and Ratanakkiri provinces, who say another dam on the Vietnam side of the Se San has increased flooding and damaged water quality.
Construction began on the Yali Falls dam in 1993, and the dam was blamed for 32 flooding deaths in Ratanakkiri in its first years of operation. Sin Niny says that problem has been solved by Vietnamese officials notifying Cambodia of coming water surges.
But a study earlier this year produced by government and NGOs traced the dam to a continuing pattern of “devastating” flooding that has “severely damaged rice and vegetable crops in all the villages” further down the river in Stung Treng province.
Irregular water flow has made the water cloudy, hurting wildlife and inducing health effects such as eye irritation and stomach problems, the study found.
Most of the 30,000 residents living along the river in Stung Treng have suffered from the dam, the study found. A similar study conducted in Ratanakkiri last year found that more than 20,000 people in 59 villages had been affected by the dam.
Stung Treng residents discussed the study in a meeting last month, during which they heard of plans to build another dam. “They were very upset to hear about the Se San 3,” said Michael Lerner, a researcher with Oxfam America, a funder of the study.
Cambodian and Vietnamese authorities had been discussing the ground rules of the environmental and river flow studies when Vietnam announced construction was to begin.
Sin Niny acknowledged that the discussions had stalled on the Cambodian side. Vietnam has offered to fund the studies, but Cambodian officials cannot agree which ministry should assist in the river flow study, he said.
Vietnam has chosen two firms to lead the environmental studies, the Swiss Sweco and the Norwegian Stadkraft, the Vietnamese official said. The river flow study will require detailed topographical mapping.
Cambodian officials have requested that the impact study extend all the way to Stung Treng, but Vietnamese officials have said that will depend on results of the river flow study, Cambodian officials say.
The 720-megawatt Yali Falls dam, located about 70 km from the border, was a $1 billion project. The new 260-megawatt Se San 3 is located about 50 km from the border and carries a $273 million price tag, according to the government-run Vietnam News Agency.
The dam will be funded by a combination of government money and “foreign loans,” the agency reported, without elaborating. The Asian Development Bank funded an earlier feasibility study of the dam but is no longer involved, bank and Vietnamese officials said.
Vietnamese officials may be feeling considerable pressure to finish work as soon as possible on the dam, which will provide electricity to the country’s strife-wracked Central Highlands. Government-organized resettlement and migration has quadrupled the area’s population since 1975, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.
When hill tribe Montagnards started massive protests in the coffee-growing provinces last year, complaining of land theft and religious persecution, Vietnamese officials blamed foreign agents. But in recent months they have cited slow development in the area as another cause of unrest, state-run media reported.
