Construction for Controversial Mekong Dam near Luang Prabang has progressed

Another interruption of the free flow of Mekong river and the way for its fish population; more than 1200 families are forced to move their homes and income resources, and the earthquake risk for the historic town of Unesco-protected Luang Prabang is rising: The construction of a highly controversial hydropower project in Laos has begun. The energy shall be delivered to Thailand.

See the location of Luang Prabang hydropower project on Google Map by #treasuresoflaos and on Mekong River Hydropower Dams and Plants Google Map

The development cost of the 1,460-Megawatt facility is estimated at U.S. $ 3 billions. The run-of-the-river dam is planned about 25 kilometers upstream from Luang Prabang, at Houygno village according to the website of Mekong River Commission, located by the upstream Pak Beng hydropower project and the downstream Xayaburi project. The energy will be produced by 7 turbines or generators, each delivering 200 Megawatt. See this introduction video:



Who is behind the Luang Prabang hydropower project?
The Luang Prabang Power Company Limited (LPCL), a company established by Lao PDR and PetroVietnam Power Corporation, is the project developer, finances it and will operate it. In late 2020 an ownership change occurred with the stock ownership of Luang Prabang Power Company Limited changed to the following: PT Sole Co., Ltd. 38 percent; Petro Vietnam Power Corporation 10 percent; CK Power Public Company 42 percent and CH. Karnchang Public Company Limited 10 percent. CK Power Plc (CKP) is the power generation arm of the Thai construction firm CH Karnchang Plc, which built the Xayaburi Dam. So a Thai company is the major shareholder . in July 2021 LPCL signed the Concession Agreement of the LPHPP with the Government of the Lao PDR, for a concession period of 35 years. LPCL has signed a tariff Memorandum of Understanding with the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT). EGAT shall be the off-taker of all electricity generated by the Luang Prabang hydropower plant from the Scheduled Commercial Operation Date (January 1, 2030).

What happens tro the people living around the dam area?
More than 1,200 families in Oudomxay province will be forced to move to make way for the project. The dam will flood a dozen villages on the bank of the Mekong River in Nga district, including Lath Han, Khok Phou, Yoiyai and Phonsavang. Also residents of Houei Yor village, Chomphet district, in Luang Prabang province are affected. Residents of Nga district in Oudomxay province and Chomphet district in Luang Prabang province say authorities are shortchanging them for the land and other property they would lose. Oudomxay officials offered 100 million kip (U.S. $8,500) per hectare of farmland to locals, said a Nga district resident. Read more in a report by th.boell.org.

What happens to the historic town of Luang Prabang and ist famous temples - a UNESCO World Heritage Site?
Unesco has demanded a Heritage Impact Assessment, because there were concerns. Dams will encircle Luang Prabang’s urban area. " I can see a nightmare scenario where dam operators aren’t talking to each other, a massive weather event pours through northern Laos and sudden dam releases from these dams cause an unnecessary flooding event around Luang Prabang,” said Brian Eyler, director of the Stimson Center’s Southeast Asia programme. “The Xayaburi dam would act like a plug in the bathtub, not allowing the water out to the downstream if its flood responses weren’t ready for those sudden upstream releases. It’s a complicated but possible scenario.” The Luang Prabang dam would be the first in the Lower Mekong Basin to encounter water discharged from the 11 mainstream Chinese dams, including the massive 5,850 MW Nuozhadu dam. Upstreams of Luang Prabang the Mekong also merges with the Nam Ou, a river with a cascade of seven hydropower dams built by PowerChina.
By signing the World Heritage Convention, countries pledge “not to take any deliberate measures which might directly or indirectly damage the natural and cultural heritage” of a site and to “ensure the protection and conservation of their Outstanding Universal Value and other heritage values.”
The dam will be built in an earthquake-prone zone. “We are very worried about the seismic fault only 8.6 kilometers from the Luang Prabang dam site,” said leading Thai seismologist Punya Churasiri. “It is too dangerous to go ahead with this project.”

How is the progress of the construction works so far?

อัปเดต 2023, โครงการก่อสร้างเขื่อนหลวงพระบาง ห่างจากมรดกโลกหลวงพระบาง ประมาณ 25 กม. **โดยทุนไทย**
-
Update 2023, Construction work has begun on the Luang Prabang hydropower dam on the Mekong River in Laos.#เขื่อนหลวงพระบาง #แม่น้ำโขง pic.twitter.com/o4QkhN5Q6y

— Phetric 🥸 (@PHETSIAM) February 7, 2023

In March 2021 Xinhua reported that the preparatory work was already 80 per cent complete. Among the work was the construction of an 11-km access road, a 500-metre bridge over the Mekong River, three temporary ports, as well as some transmission lines and a small electricity station. Bangkok Tribune shows pictures of the construction progress.

What could stop the construction of Luang Prabang hydropower plant?
The dam has been criticised by environmental groups and the government in Thailand, which will feel the effects on its Mekong border with Laos and beyond. “Surely effects for Thailand include fish loss, the fluctuations of dams cutting the river ecology, the unnatural water flow and the sediment loss until the water becomes blue,” said Niwat Roykaew of Thailand’s Chiang Khong Conservation Group, adding that it will impact fishing communities. Thailand’s authorities have received pressure from environmental groups to not purchase power from the Luang Prabang dam and other projects. But: "Environmental and heritage reviews are unlikely to stop the Lao government forging ahead with its hydroelectric plans", wrote Milton Osborne.


Updated informations about Luang Prabng hydropower plant you can find on Hobomaps.


Read also:
Luang Prabang Mekong Dam: Completed by 2030?
Another controversial Mekong Dam in Luang Prabang raises Fears
Laos - the Battery of Asia: Hydropower Dams and Consequences

Another controversial Mekong Dam in Luang Prabang raises Fears

See the location on Luang Prabang Google Map by #treasuresoflaos


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

The Jewel at the Mekong

See the locations on Luang Prabang Google Map by #treasuresoflaos



Suddenly there is an orange gleaming in the morning mist. A line of monks in their saffron robes turns around the corner. From the temple, where they live, into the main road. A line of Lao women is waiting, kneeling on mats, with baskets filled of hot sticky rice, bananas, candies. It's short after six o'clock in the morning. It's the daily procession of hundreds of monks through the streets of Luang Prabang. The women are ready to gain merits. Merits are important in Buddhism. Monks earn merits through meditation, chanting and more rituals. One way for women to earn merits is cooking and serving food to the monks, giving alms to them. When the monks pass by, the women take the food out of their baskets and put it into the bowls of the men.


The monks on their way

It's a magical moment in a mystic town.

And it's a moment of pity, when the monks and women are surrounded by hordes of tourists with their cameras. What happens too often now.

Luang Prabang is awakening. One of Southeast Asia's best preserved old cities makes faster and faster steps into the modern era. Tourism is a hope for the poor country of Laos. And also a danger. More and more tourists are looking for the unhurried charm of the traditional tranquility. They can still find it in this former royal city on a peninsula, formed by the Nam Khan, a river coming out of the misty mountains and joining the Mekong, the stream that is one of the wonders of Asias nature itself.

Luang Prabang has been a spiritual centre for hundreds of years. It became the royal capital in the 14th century, for six centuries, until the abolition of the monarchy in 1975. The first Lao Kingdom, The Lan Xang (Million Elephants), was founded in 1353 by the Khmer-supported conqueror Fa-Ngnum. He made Theravada Buddhism the state religion (see history). He got from the Khmer monarchy as gift a golden Buddha image, the Phra Bang, which gave the town the name. Today still around thousand monks and novices are living here. More than 30 temples, the so called wats or vats, have survived, dating from the fifteenth century onwards. In the morning you may wake up and hear chants, bells, gongs and drums sound harmoniously across the town. You wake up in a town of old Indochina, that still looks as it used to look during the colonial time, when the French were the rulers. A combination of Lao, Indochinese and French styles. Temples as well as shophouses from the early 20th century and older wood houses. Since 1995 Luang Prabang is a Unesco World Heritage site. Strict construction rules are followed. Thats why you discover an unique old asian town.


Haw Pha Bang


L'Eléphant Restaurant



But inside the buildings there are changes. More an more families leave the old town, because they transform their old houses into guesthouses and hotels. There is a limit of this development in view: Some days there could be not enough families left for giving nutrition to the monks. Then the existence of the old temples will be in danger. The impact of the tourism on the city has been described by the New York Times lately. This led to a broad discussion, that you can follow on lonelyplanet.com.





The view from Mount Phousi, picture by annamatic3000

And Mount Phousi and the old town seen from the other side of the Mekong, from Wat Chomphet:


Picture by marhas

See a series of fotos by New York Times and read 36 hours in Luang Prabang.

The Royal Palace is now a museum. Read the article by Gary Walsh from the Australian, whats best here and elsewhere in Luang Prabang. Find a nice description also by Jeffrey.


Picture by jeffreyalanmiller.wordpress.com

Royal Ballet Theatre: The Royal Ballet troupe performed Phra-Lak Phra-Lam, the Lao version of the sacred poem, the Ramayana, in the Royal Palace in Luang Prabang. 1975 the theatre was banned. 2002 the theatre was reestablished. See scenes from the Lao Ramayana, Lao folk dances and tribal dances. The performance starts from 6pm and entry is from 8 to 20 USD.


Picture by Lorna87. See more pictures by Esther Kalandjai

Read:
visit-laos.com


Exploring Luang Prabang See picture by Mariko



Sakkarine Road.







Ban Phanom Village



Luang Say Mekong Cruise: On the Pakou Boats, a 34 meter long barge

Links




Festivals Find a calendar of festivals in Laos here.
Hmong New Year: See a photostory by AdVenture into Laos.


Read background articles:
Embracing the slow life of Laos by Lightfoot Travel
Stemming the Tide by Travel+Leisure
Unce upon a Sleepy by Fah Thai Magazine
Le tourisme au Laos ; bénédiction ou calamité? - Article by Alain Devalpo

Notes on Luang Prabang: Soups, trains, bad bikes, and sad waterfalls

Dinner Cruise on Mekong

Picture by Nava Mekong

Have a dinner on the river? What's usual in Bangkok or Chiang Mai has been launched now in Luang Prabang. Villa Maly Hotel now offers Nava Mekong: Everyday at 5.30 pm a boat goes downstream, stays nearby a village for dinner with traditional Lao food and dance and returns around 9 pm. The dancers perform interpretations of the royal ballet, rural life and folk tales.