Luang Prabang Dam - illustration in MRC project overview
Vietnam's rice bowl, the Mekong Delta, severly damaged? Luang Prabang World heritage town inundated and destroyed? Such fears have been raised, after the Lao government has announced another massive dam project on Mekong river: the Luang Prabang dam. Laos has formally notified the Mekong River Commission (MRC) of its intention. The 1460 MW Luang Prabang dam is the fifth dam to be submitted for consultation. The earlier hydropower projects were Xayaburi (operational now), Don Sahong (in the final testing phase), Pak Beng and Pak Lay.
Luang Prabang dam is planned approximately 25 km upstream of Luang Prabang ancient town, at the village Ban Houaygno, and about 4 km upstream of the confluence between Nam Ou and Mekong, with a 90 sq km reservoir. The Luang Prabang Power Company Limited (LPCL) has been established to develop the project by PetroVietnam Power Corporation (PV Power). Petrovietnam Power Corporation is a subsidiary of Vietnam Oil and Gas Corporation. The dam will have a navigation lock so that boats still can navigate up- and downstream. Fish could use two fish locks as well as the ship lock to migrate upstream. To protect Luang Prabang town from the flood of a dam failure the structures shall be designed to withstand extreme seismic and flood events. That is necessary: Luang Prabng province is located in a high earthquake hazard region.
Illustration in MRC project overwiew
The US$ 2,000 million project is expected to have a direct impact on 26 villages in three provinces: Luang Prabang, Oudomxay and Xayaburi, with an estimated 840 households3 and 9,974 people. These villages would be in the submerged area and/or the backwater area and their inhabitants would have to be relocated, either to new resettlement sites or higher ground in the same villages. The impacts foreseen are loss of agricultural and forestry land, houses and public infrastructure. The report notes that lost land cannot be replaced as all the productive land is already being used.
The generated electricity is foreseen to be exported the neighboring countries Vietnam and Thailand.
See overview of Luang Prabang Hydropower Project.
The decision by Petrovietnam to invest in the Luang Prabang dam, "has caused confusion and dismay for many Mekong experts, civil society groups, and some government officials in Hanoi", writes The Diplomat. The critcal voices argue, that the Mekong delta is highly vulnerable to downstream impacts by the dams in the river. They could block nutrient-rich sediment from reaching the fragile ecosystem of the delta, Vietnams rice bowl. Back in 2011, the former Vietnamese prime minister called for the stop of the construction of the Xayaburi dam. "Now, however, the Vietnamese government has switched sides and slipped into bed with the dam developers", analyzes The Diplomat. Dr. Philip Hirsch, the former director of the Mekong Research Center at Sydney University, commented that “the involvement of a major state owned company in developing hydropower on the Mekong mainstream undermines earlier official positions that such development poses great risks to the millions of people living, farming and fishing in the Mekong Delta.” According to a report by the Mekong River Commission, before the first dam in 1990, the Mekong was releasing 160 million tonnes of sediment on average per year. Now it is only 80 million tonnes per year, notes vietnamnews.vn.
The Save the Mekong coalition, a coalition of non-government organisations, community-based groups and concerned citizens within the Mekong region, recently has expressed her concern over the Luang Prabang project with these words: “If built, Luang Prabang dam, combined with Pak Beng, Xayaburi and Pak Lay dams, would complete the transformation of the Mekong River along the entire stretch of northern Laos into a series of stepped lakes, resulting in major and irreversible damage to the health and productivity of the river. This means that the wide range of economic and social benefits that the river provides to society will be lost, and the river will become a water channel for electricity generation, primarily benefiting hydropower companies.”
Read also:
Laos - the Battery of Asia: Hydropower Dams and Consequences
