Mekong River Dam: United States Praises Laos For Suspending Project

BALI, Indonesia — U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton praised Laos as taking a "forward-leaning position" after the tiny, landlocked nation said it had no immediate plans to resume work on a dam across the Mekong River, a senior U.S. official said.

The dam – a multibillion-dollar, 1,260-megawatt hydroelectric project – would be the first across the river as it meanders through Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. China has dammed its upper reaches, but the 3,000-mile (4,900-kilometer) river otherwise runs free.

Opponents say construction in Laos could open the way for 10 more dams downstream. That could affect the lives of hundreds of millions of people.

"This is a serious issue for all the countries that share the Mekong River," Clinton said at a meeting of ministers from affected nations Friday.

"Because if any of you build a dam, all of you will feel the consequences in environmental degradation, challenges to food security and impacts on communities."

Laos announced in May that it would defer building the $3.5 billion Xayaburi dam until an expert review was done. Hydropower is one of Laos' few major resources, and the country had hoped revenue from the dam would spur economic and social development.

It said Friday the suspension would continue, said Kurt Campbell, the top U.S. diplomat for Asia, quoting Clinton and others as welcoming the "forward-leaning" decision.

Laos has said the dam would not significantly impact the Mekong mainstream, but activists, scientists and officials in other countries say it would cause irreversible damage.

They say it would disrupt fish migrations, block nutrients for downstream farming and even foul Vietnam's rice bowl by slowing the river's speed and allowing saltwater to creep into the Mekong River Delta.

"I want to urge all parties to pause on any considerations to build new dams until we are able to do a better assessment of the likely consequences," Clinton said.

Comments

[sensimilla]

02:01 PM on 07/23/2011

kind of funny to have Americans lecturing others on the destruction of dams. How about we push forth to remove some of our own damns and reestablish proper ecosystems?

Here in the nw, many damns have destroyed watersheds, fisheries and topographies and for what? Our electric companies ship off all the excess power to other states for huge profits, while consumer energy prices continue their upward climb year after year.

[SimonBao]

02:44 PM on 07/23/2011

Well but all of that is really very Off Topic, isn't it. It's a worthy topic... just very Off Topic.

[mumi009]

06:58 AM on 07/23/2011

What about hydrokinetic technology?

[ClarcKing]

10:30 PM on 07/22/2011

Madame Clinton is going green, it's a serious offense. First world, western nations, dominate the rest of the world. No one is allowed to develop their natural resources, no nuclear power, no modernization projects. Anything that elevates man through the science driven reorganization of resources, facilities, etc.is forbidden.

The fact is, nations must develop science driven infrastructure that harvests and distributes water. Throughout the world, most human deaths are caused by uncontrollable water intrusions, flooding , rushing rivers, etc. North America must be redeveloped through the continental water harvesting/distribution system proposed in the NAWAPA plan.

If Sec Clinton were concerned for the environment, and the lives of billions, she could make a statement on Perpetual War and the threatened food supply. Through Globalization, the monetary financial system, speculation and usury are in every sector of the population's economy, and is causing contraction of production; farm land is not producing the necessary food for the wold population.

It is time to terminate the monetary financial system, end the slave labor system of Globalization, everyone must work together and create the necessary higher order of existence humanity demands.

[SimonBao]

02:26 AM on 07/23/2011

With all due respect, you cannot possibly be talking about the Mekong River. The Mekong does not need a dam in order to prevent "human deaths... by uncontrollable water intrusions, flooding, rushing rivers, etc."

More people are likely to die as a consequence of the dam being built - because rice, fish, and shellfish production in Cambodia and Vietnam depend on a free flowing Mekong River.

If you are worried about farm land failing to produce enough food, don't go building dams on rivers like the Mekong. The downriver farms depend on both its water and its silts.

[ClarcKing]

09:29 AM on 07/23/2011

With all respect, etc., I believe you oversimplified the issues and overall policy of marginalization. No one is validating the Laotian aspirations for modernization, the improvement and elevation of their standard of living. Thailand, Vietnam, the region of Indo-China have been kept in a margin proscribed by others. Green perspectives and terminology are a weapon of mass destruction and must be confronted.

All of Humanity want to be raised up now and must be allowed to create that economic platform(s) that facilitates this courageous goal.

[sensimilla]

02:09 PM on 07/23/2011

while there is some truth to what you say, entities like NAWAPA are antithetical to the notion of a world community and would immediately ramp up the resource wars of the 21st century to a frightening new level. So let me guess, the water would be guarded so that Canada, whose length it would run for thousands of miles, would not be able to access it even in need. right?

That is basically PNAC and i'm not going there..the answer is conservation and efficiency, not more rampaging ways to remove the Earth's bounty.

[ClarcKing]

02:55 PM on 07/23/2011

Entities like NAWAPA create an economic platform that employs 8 million Americans, reversing our crisis; would fundamentally change the North American continent, so that lives would be saved and enhanced by greater access to water, flood controls, greater farm produce, an improved ecology that you can not imagine, not left in its natural state.

Humanity improves the environment, the biosphere; the universe responds to Man's work and facilitates our perpetual survival, this is our destiny.

The green perspective that "there is not enough to go around" is absolutely wrong, its an offensive against the human race; Its going to be challenged from now on. Get used to it.

[donttreez]

06:18 PM on 07/22/2011

only famine and then war would be the result

[LMPE]

05:28 PM on 07/22/2011

it would be Laos-y to have a damn dam on the Mekong

[JScott]

02:02 PM on 07/22/2011

Perhaps a country has finally seen what can happen when the Colorado gets dammed, yeah you get short term growth but you STILL experience droughts and as it turns out you still get short of water, and upper basin folks STILL fight over it.

[Jack Daniels Esq]

01:56 PM on 07/22/2011

Billary is a defrocked chicken farmer

[SimonBao]

01:53 PM on 07/22/2011

That's great news for everyone who depends on a healthy Mekong River, but it begs a question.

If Laos foregoes the dam, it also foregoes all the hydro-electricity that dam was meant to provide. How is Laos supposed to thrive and feed itself without increasing its supply of energy?

The overwhelming majority of the population lives in poverty and is trapped in subsistence agriculture, and any change to that equation requires (among other things) access to energy.

Laos has no oil or gas deposits to exploit, only some coal - and does anyone really want to see one more nation develop by pumping carbon into the air? Hydroelectricity has been one of Laos's few exportable commodities.

Hydroelectric dams may destroy vast areas of agricultural land and forest and degrade agriculture and fresh water supplies downstream, but at least it's technically "sustainable."

I'd like to know if Clinton or any other US official is offering a TON of help to Laos, to develop non-fossil fuel, non-hydroelectric energy sources with with to develop.