For the first time, China will provide details of dams

April 1, 2010
The Nation

Brainstorm session ahead of MRC Summit

Before the Mekong River Commission summit opens, local and foreign NGOs will hold a brainstorming session on the subject at Chulalongkorn University today and tomorrow.

Ideas resulting from this session would then be given to the government to raise during the MRC summit, which runs from tomorrow to Monday in Prachuap Khiri Khan's Hua Hin district.

Suwit Kularbwong, an activist, said he disagreed with Natural Resources Minister Suwit Khun-kitti's proposal to build seven dams in four member countries: Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia.

The activist said he regarded the 15 years of MRC's existence a failure because most of the projects were aimed at improving the economy, but failed to recognise development in cultural and social terms. He added he hoped the issue of setting up an NGO panel in the MRC would be brought up at the summit.

Thailand, currently chairing the MRC, should formally ask China to provide details about four more dams planned in addition to the four already built, the activist added.

Another activist, Phianphorn Deethes, said building a dam along the Thai-Lao border might cause massive flooding in Chiang Rai province's Wieng Kaen and Chiang Khong districts.

She said she expected the current drying up of the Mekong along the Thai-Lao border would be brought up with China at the summit. China is not a member of the MRC but has agreed to attend the summit as an observer.

Somkiat Khuenchiangsa, also an activist, said the construction of dams in China caused massive flooding in Thailand in 2008 and dried up the river this year.

Responding to the red-shirt protesters' vow to stage a rally at the seminar venue, Suwit said he hoped a pleasant atmosphere was maintained because this was the first time in 15 years that China had agreed to release details about its dam projects. He added that Thailand was also hoping to lure China and Burma into joining the MRC during the summit. "This is a key issue, because MRC has been wishing to have more members all along," he said.

China to provide water data on dams [along the Mekong River]

25/03/2010
Apinya Wipatayotin and Theeraporn Saiwirat
Bangkok Post

China has agreed to provide water level data from two dams in Yunnan province until the end of this year's drought in the lower Mekong River basin, Natural Resources and Environment Minister Suwit Khunkitti says.

China recently sent a letter to the Mekong River Commission saying it was willing to provide it with hydrological data from Jinghong and Manwan dams, the minister said.

The data will be delivered every Monday at 9am starting from this week and will end at "the end of drought", the letter says. The data includes information on water levels, flow and rainfall at 8am on each day.

The cooperation comes after growing pressure from countries in the lower basin, including Thailand and Laos, which have complained that dams in China are contributing to problems leading to the lowest water levels ever seen in the Mekong.

Thailand has demanded China cooperate more closely on water management during the drought season.

Mr Suwit praised the Chinese decision to release the water information to other countries through the commission, calling it a significant step in closer collaboration with other countries sharing the resources of the river,

"It is a historical success since the establishment of the Mekong River Commission 15 years ago. The cooperation indicates China's sincerity in dealing with the problem. It is a mutual step for creating trust between us," he said.

The step resulted from talks when Chinese Assistant Foreign Minister Hu Zhengyue called on Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva this month.

Mr Suwit expressed confidence the information from the hydro-meteorological stations would be useful for the river basin management.

"The information is important. It lets us know where the problem is. Dams retain only 4% of water flowing to the Mekong."

The problem will be high on the agenda at the Mekong River Commission summit to be held in Hua Hin from April 2 to 5. China will attend the meeting as an observer. The MRC comprises Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam.

In another development, Mr Suwit said the drought season for this year was likely to extend to June and would cause more problems for farmers.

Only the Srinagarind dam in Kanchanaburi has a water level over 80%, unlike the rest which average about 40%, he said.

Activists working on Mekong River issues, meanwhile, said they plan to hold a parallel forum to discuss the water crisis when the MRC summit is held in Hua Hin. The public forum will be held at Chulalongkorn University.

The day after the two-day forum, the Mekong People Network in Thailand would submit a letter to China through its ambassador to Bangkok to call on Beijing to take responsibility for water problems facing countries downstream.

China killing Tibet’s rivers, people’s livelihood

(TibetanReview.net, Mar24, 2010) - China’s move to declared mountain pastures roamed by Tibetan nomads since ancient times as national parks and to move the nomads, with their herds, to fixed settlements have nothing to do with improving the environment or the people’s livelihood. This is an eyewitness finding of Canadian documentary maker Michael Buckley who has made a documentary on China’s damming of Tibet’s rivers.

“It is just a cover. They don’t want people living there. The nomads are being taken off their land so as to make way for hydro projects and mining ventures,” the Epoch Times online (New York) Mar 22 quoted Buckley as saying.

Michael hopes that his documentary would help expose the Chinese propaganda about Tibetans happily taking to settled in fixed townships. “The nomads are the forgotten people of Tibet. No one is standing up for them, they are being wiped out and they will just disappear and no one is doing anything to stop that so it is a tragic situation,” he was quoted as saying.

Buckley’s 40-minute documentary film, “Meltdown in Tibet,” was screened in Bangkok Mar 22.

His original plan was to investigate the Tibet-China railway line; but he got sidetracked when he discovered Tibet’s river systems being strangled by large-scale dam construction. In 2005, he teamed up with a group of tourists kayaking through Tibetan rivers and came across newly constructed dams built to divert water and hydro energy to China. The dams were hidden, located down gorges so that that one could not see them from the road, he has said.

The documentary investigates a number of rivers in Tibet, including the Salween (Tibetan: Gyalmo Ngulchu), which also flows through China, Burma, and Thailand and empties into the Andaman Sea. Buckley has said: “Despite widespread protest from within China and from neighboring countries in Asia, Chinese engineers are forging ahead with plans for a cascade of 13 large dams on the Salween. Several dams are already under construction—one the height of a 60-story building.”

Another river he has investigated is the Dri Chu, or Yak River, which becomes the Yangtze—one of China’s most famous rivers—a river which, along with the Yellow River, now fails to reach the sea. “In the upper reaches of the Yangtze River—at the edges of the Tibetan plateau—there are three more large dams under construction, and five more in the planning stages,” his film is quoted as saying.

Buckley has found that altogether 31 large dams are scheduled to be built in the Three Parallel Rivers region, which includes the Upper Yangtze, Upper Mekong, and Salween rivers.

In the downstream region, China’s efforts to dam the Dza Chu, or Mekong River, in its Upper region have dramatically altered the flow of the river, affecting those nations further downstream—Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam – according to Buckley’s documentary. The most recent of these dams to come into operation—the Xiaowan Dam—is the second largest of China’s hydroelectric power station after the Three Gorges Dam.

Environmental groups outside of China have been vocal in blaming four Chinese mega dams in the Upper Mekong for being the main reason why the famous river’s level has dropped to a 50-year low.

Buckley’s conclusion from his research is: “If you want to kill a river, building dams is the best way to do it.”

Mekong shows its new face: China's dams pose a serious threat to Mekong river countries

A riverside road that was eroded by the Mekong. — SAROT MEKSOPHAWANNAKUL
The fish sold in riverside markets are getting smaller. — SAROT MEKSOPHAWANNAKUL

China's dams pose a serious threat to Mekong river countries, writes Kultida Samabuddhi in Ubon Ratchathani

Monday August 25, 2008
Bangkok Post

Last week's floods that ravaged the Mekong riverside provinces are a wake-up call for riverside folks - this 4,350km-long river is now vastly different from the waterway it used to be.

The river overflowed and inundated more than 2,200 villages in seven provinces - Chiang Rai, Nan, Nakhon Phanom, Sakon Nakhon, Nong Khai, Phetchabun and Mukdahan - and left four people dead in Nakhon Phanom and Nong Khai.

Over 100,000 rai of farmland were affected by the flood, which also devastated parts of Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia.

The Mekong's water level, which is less than a metre deep in the dry season, rose to 14 metres and the overflow inundated the lowlands early this month.

Villagers living further inland were also hit by floods because the high water level in the Mekong backed up the river's tributaries.

Attributing the heavier than expected flooding to the above-average rainfall, authorities said it was another sign of anomalies in the world's 12th longest river detected over recent years.

Pointing to the strong currents of murky water flowing by her house in Mukdahan's Muang district, Methee Kaengrang, 36, said she used to think that living by the Mekong was a blessing. Mekong villagers mainly earn a living by catching fish in the river or growing crops on the fertile land close to the river banks in the dry season.

But now she feels it is no longer safe to live near the banks of the Mekong.

"I've lived by this river since I was born, but I'm so afraid of it now as the river has changed its character a lot from the old days," she said.

The river has a much stronger flow than before and it is savaging the river banks, she said, pointing to a collapsed concrete road in front of her house.

When this local road was built a few years ago it was around 3-4 metres from the river.

A few months ago, Mrs Methee was woken up in the middle of the night by a strong tremble and a loud roar from the river. She found out later that the mighty river had eroded the river bank by many metres and come closer to her home. "My house will be swept away within a few years if there is no levee to combat the erosion," she said.

According to the Mukdahan provincial office, around 2-3 metres of land is being eroded each year. The province has hurried the construction of a levee along its 72km river bank to keep the erosion in check.

Mrs Methee said she had only recently learned from news reports about the construction of mega-hydro power dams by China and the blasting of islets on the upper sections of the Mekong river to deepen the waters and make it possible for big cargo ships to navigate the river.

She believes that the damming of the Mekong might have caused the changes in the river and the stronger-than-usual flow causing much of the erosion.

China has built three large dams in the upper Mekong, Manwan, Dachaoshan, and Jinghong, which was completed in June. The fourth dam, Xiaowan, is still under construction and expected to come into operation in 2012.

Jinghong is the closest dam to Thailand, around 300km from Chiang Rai province.

The Chinese dams will not only worsen flooding downstream, but also cause water shortages. What will happen if China refuses to release water from the dams in the dry season, she asked.

The villagers said although the ecological impact of Chinese dams upstream were not apparent at the moment, the psychological impact on the villagers were clear. "We are scared. Earthquakes are so frequent in China and we are afraid the quakes will one day break up the dams. If that happens, the huge volume of water from the bursting dams released into the Mekong would kill us," she said.

Napassorn Charoensuk Maliwan, who runs a riverside restaurant in Muang district, is also badly affected by the Mekong bank erosion. The invading river swept away part of her restaurant in June.

She said a clarification from the Chinese government was needed on the dam operations in order to help Thai authorities and locals adjust to the river's hydrological changes.

The restaurant operator said changes in the Mekong's eco-system had also caused a sharp decline in fish stocks in the river.

Mukdahan's fish markets are no longer full of fish from the Mekong these days. "Sometimes I can't even find enough fish to serve my customers," said Ms Napassorn.

A fishmonger at the Pornpetch market in Muang district said the situation is dire as some of the most popular fish species found in the river, such as catfish, sheatfish and barb, have also shrunk in size.

Mekong fishermen in Ubon Ratchathani's Khong Chiam district, where the Mekong demarcates the Thai-Laos border in mid-river, also blamed overfishing for the dwindling fish stocks.

There are a lot of fishermen hunting for fish in the Mekong with destructive fishing gear, such as large nets and battery-powered stun-guns, Dam Kongton, a 77-year-old fisherman from Pha Chan village said.

He had been catching over 10kg of fish a day in the past, but his son says he can only catch around 2kg of fish a day today.

What worries Pha Chan village headman Kamphan Cherdchai the most is the river's fluctuating water level.

"The water level has been rising and falling very quickly. Over the past few years, we have seen the river doing so every three days, which is unusual."

Such a phenomenon affects both the fishermen and farmers.

"The river has become more and more unpredictable. We'd like this river to behave like before and live peacefully with us as it used to," he said.