The Council of Ministers on Friday signed off on the Lower Sesan 2 dam project in Stung Treng province, despite long-standing criticism leveled against the project by environmental groups who say it would adversely affect 100,000 people as a consequence of reduced access to fish.
The 400-megawat dam located on one of the Mekong River’s most important tributaries will be funded with a $781.52 million investment- a share of which is from the local conglomerate Royal Group- and will take at least five years to complete, the Council of Ministers said in a statement. …
The potential fallout from the dam is considerable. A 2009 study carried out by Ian Baird, a 3S Basin fisheries expert at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, showed that the dam is set to displace 5,000 villagers alone in Sesan district.
But as many as 100,000 people who rely on the Sesan River in Stung Treng and Ratanakkiri provinces could lose the ability to catch fish. …
By Kuch Naren, P. 1
http://www.camnet.com.kh/cambodia.daily/ (Note: Infrequently Updated.)
While the humanitarian objections to Mondulkiri’s proposed Lower Sesan 2 hydropower dam project are well documented, a report from conservation NGO International Rivers yesterday highlighted an objection of another sort: the Lower Sesan wouldn’t be a very good location for a dam in the first place.
According to the report, which compiled information from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), environmental assessments and local media reports, the Lower Sesan is a poor place for such a project from a logistical standpoint, and the dam would rank among the least efficient in terms of megawatts (MW) of power produced versus land lost to flooding. …
The report said that the Lower Sesan is heavily dammed above the proposed site, and even dams upstream are struggling to get enough water to operate at full capacity – due in part to more dams even farther upstream. …
Stuart White, P. 4
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012083158410/National-news/lower-sesan-2s-power-not-worth-a-dam-ngo.html
More than two dozen fisheries experts from across the world have sent a letter of concern to the prime minister and Council of Ministers warning that if construction of the Lower Sesan 2 dam goes ahead as planned, it would negatively impact hundreds of thousands of people and jeopardize a number of Millennium Development Goals.
Sent in September and obtained yesterday, the letter outlines the ramifications of the dam, including the impact on fish migration and food security. But six months after its delivery, the letter appears to have made little impact, with Council of Ministers officials and Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Cabinet saying they were not aware of the letter. …
The letter gives further credence to mounting concerns over the Lower Sesan 2 dam, said Kirk Herbertson, Mekong campaigner for environmental group International Rivers. …
Abby Sieff and Kuch Naren, P. 15
http://www.camnet.com.kh/cambodia.daily/ (Note: Infrequently Updated.)
Hydropower dams planned for the tributaries of the Mekong River, particularly the Lower Sesan 2, will have a “catastrophic” impact on fish stocks throughout the country, according to new research that calls for several planned dams to be reconsidered.
Authored by an international group of researchers including a scientist at the Fisheries Administration, the study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provides the strongest evidence yet of the perils of the Lower Sesan 2 dam. It adds to a growing body of research suggesting the dam will have devastating and irreversible impacts on fisheries, biodiversity and the livelihoods of tens of thousands of people. …
Of all the tributary dams still in the planning stage, the most harmful by far is Cambodia’s Lower Sesan 2 Dam, which the researchers estimate will cause a 9.3 percent drop in fish stocks throughout the Mekong basin. The finding dwarfs that of the second and third most harmful dams, both in Laos and expected to lead to decreases of 2.3 and 0.9 percent, respectively. …
Abby Sieff and Kuch Naren, P. 1
http://www.camnet.com.kh/cambodia.daily/ (Note: Infrequently Updated.)
About 400 indigenous Lao villagers prayed and sacrificed chickens to a powerful local spirit yesterday in Stung Treng province, seeking supernatural help in halting the planned construction of the Lower Sesan 2 Dam, villagers and commune officials said yesterday.
The hydropower projects, funded by Vietnam Electricity, will flood tens of thousands of hectares of forest and farmland, and displace 5,000 mostly indigenous minority villagers in Sesan district.
Although plans for the dam have been in the works since 2008, villagers have never been officially informed about resettlement plans or when construction is scheduled to start, although they were told in May that they would be evicted. … With these worries in mind, villagers from three affected communes – Srekor, Kbal Romeas and Phluk – came together yesterday with more than 50 other villagers who boated in from Ratanakiri province to pray before the local spirit, Neak Ta Krahorm Kar, which roughly translates as “spirit with the red neck.”
Kuch Naren and Dene-Hern Chen, P. 18
http://www.camnet.com.kh/cambodia.daily/ (Note: Infrequently Updated.)
