Vietnamese scientists and environmentalists have raised worries over wide-ranging threats posed by Laos’ building of a power plant on the Mekong River.
They said caution must be taken into account for the construction of the 1,260 MW Xayaburi hydro-electric power plant on the mainstream of the Mekong River, which runs through Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar and China.
At the Vietnam Mekong Commission’s consultation conference on the Xayaburi power plant in Halong city on February 22, scientists and environmentalists said the pending power plant will affect not only the aquatic society and population in the river but also its water resources, food security and the density of alluvial land.
Laos plans to kick off the construction of the Xayaburi hydro-electric power plant in April this year. The plant is designed to have an 810 metre water dam, about 1,930 km from Vietnam’s Mekong Delta.
With the estimated cost of up to $3.5 billion, the power plant is expected to be built in eight years. It will make 2,100 people resettle and trigger socio-economic impacts on more than 202,000 people who live near the dam. It is expected to meet 6 per cent of electricity demand in the region by 2030.
The Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development estimated that the Mekong River brings about 26 million tonnes of alluvial land to the Mekong River Delta annually and this amount would be reduced to 7 million tonnes with the building of Xayaburi plant.
The participants also voiced the need to invite international experts to join in assessing the Xayaburi plant’s impacts on the entire Mekong River basin.
The governments from the Mekong river-benefiting countries are yet to have any official say on the issue.
However, experts from Cambodia and Thailand have, at consultation conferences, expressed concerns over the plant’s impacts on their countries’ socio-economic and environmental development.
