Tue, 26 September
2017
Phak Seangly and
Daphne Chen
A worker stands
in front of the Lower Sesan II Dam as it was put online yesterday in Stung
Treng province. The controversial hydropower structure is expected to provide a
boost to the Kingdom’s electricity supply but is also expected to cause
significant damage to fisheries. Hong Menea
The floodgates of
the largest and most controversial dam project in the country’s history
officially closed yesterday at an inauguration ceremony presided over by Prime
Minister Hun Sen, who took aim at environmentalists, ambassadors and NGOs in a
wide-ranging speech.
During his
one-hour address, the prime minister said the Lower Sesan II Dam, near the border with Laos in Stung
Treng province, would lower electricity costs and put the Kingdom on its way to
hooking up every village in the country to the electricity grid by 2022.
“There is no
development that doesn’t have an effect on the environment,” Hun Sen said.
“It’s just a matter of more or less. But it requires consideration of whether
we should or should not do it.”
The dam’s first
turbine is expected to begin generating electricity by the end of November,
with the rest expected to be fully operational by 2018.
A joint project
between China-based Hydrolancang International Energy, Vietnam-based EVN
International and Cambodia’s Royal Group – chaired by Oknha Kith Meng – the dam
will be privately operated before being handed over to the government after 40
years.
The Ministry of
Mines and Energy said yesterday that the company will sell the electricity at a
fixed rate of $0.07 per kilowatt hour, significantly less than national rates
currently as high as $0.20.
However, the $800
million, 400-megawatt dam was controversial from the start, drawing protests from displaced locals and raising alarm among environmental experts.
Hun Sen dismissed
those environmental concerns yesterday, criticising “radical environmentalists”
and pointing out the explosive demand for energy in Cambodia, which has the
most expensive electricity in the region.
“[Mother Nature]
keeps causing problems on every issue,” he said, referring to the recently
dissolved environmental NGO. “If you do like this, how can we develop? We
cannot do this or that. Coal and kerosene production, they said that it creates
smoke. Producing electricity, it affects the environment.”
Hun Sen inspects
the Lower Sesan II Dam during its inauguration yesterday in Stung Treng. Hong
Menea
In response,
Mother Nature co-founder Alejandro Gonzalez-Davidson called the prime
minister’s comments “disconnected from reality”.
In his speech,
the premier also took a shot at an unnamed diplomat who he said tried to
persuade him to nix the Sesan dam project years ago due to its impact on
fisheries.
“I was surprised
because apparently Cambodian fish can climb trees and mountains,” the prime
minister joked. “My country’s fish live in the Tonle Sap and Mekong River. They
do not live in the Sesan River.
“After
construction, just release more fish [into the river],” Hun Sen added.
Despite the
premier’s assessment, fish experts have long warned about damage to migration
routes. Ian Baird, a geographer at the University of Wisconsin who studies
Mekong River fisheries, said fish rely on the ability to move between the Sesan
and Srepok rivers and the Tonle Sap to breed.
According to
Baird, the negative impacts of the Sesan dam will be felt in Laos, Thailand and
Vietnam, all of which depend on the Mekong River system’s annual flood cycle to
deposit nutrient-rich soil on its banks. The dam will also prevent fish from
migrating upstream to Cambodia’s northern neighbours.
“It is a very sad
day for Cambodia today,” Baird said.
The dam has
already displaced around 1,500 households and flooded tens of thousands of
hectares of forest in Stung Treng’s Sesan district.
Roughly 100
families in Sre Kor and Kbal Romeas villages who have refused to relocate remained
defiant yesterday.
“Our stand
remains the same,” said Srang Lanh, 49, an ethnic Phnong woman from Kbal
Romeas. “We do not want electricity. What we want to do is to agree to live at
the old location . . . The dam separates us and causes difficulties for us
every day.”
Workers and
invited community members head towards the inauguration of the Lower Sesan II
Dam yesterday in Stung Treng. Hong
Menea
Other villagers
who agreed to move to the resettlement site along National Road 78 said they
are enjoying access to better roads and electricity – provided by nearby Laos,
not from the Sesan dam – but are adjusting to the need to purchase fish and
water that was once supplied by the river.
“I agreed to
leave because the country is developing,” said 68-year-old Sa Phorn, who said
he was one of the first villagers to leave Kbal Romeas. “We need electricity.”
But ecologists and
water management experts remained concerned that the negative impacts of the
Sesan dam will outweigh the benefits. Hydroelectric projects, largely funded by
the Chinese, are springing up along the Mekong River and its tributaries across
the region.
If approved, two
other projects in discussion – a 900-megawatt Stung Treng dam and the
2,600-megawatt Sambor Dam in Kratie province – would dwarf the Lower Sesan II
Dam. Both projects are also backed by Meng’s Royal Group.
“The direct
impact of one dam is small, but collectively they will change the way water and
sediment flow in the Mekong River,” said Jamie Pittock, a freshwater ecologist
at Australian National University who researches the impact of Mekong dams on
fisheries.
The Mekong River
Commission, an intergovernmental body that monitors the river’s development, is
expected to finish a study on the dams by the end of the year. Portions of the
study released last year estimate that the economic damage to Cambodia from 11
dams proposed on the Lower Mekong could amount to $450 million per year and cut
the fisheries yield in southern Cambodia in half.
However,
Fisheries Action Coalition Team Director Om Savath said government authorities
have largely ignored pleas from researchers and environmental activists.
“We don’t believe
the economic growth related to the hydropower dam will make things better for
the fishermen living along the river or the Cambodian people,” Savath said.
“Investors will get the benefit.”
Contact authors:
Phak Seangly and Daphne Chen
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