Decision Looms on First Mekong Mainstream Dam

Decision Looms on First Mekong Mainstream Dam
By DENIS GRAY/ASSOCIATED PRESS Wednesday, December 7, 2011

BANGKOK — Impoverished Laos is poised to erect the first dam across the Mekong River's mainstream as it pursues its goal of being Asia's battery despite intense opposition from downstream countries and environmental groups.

In what has become Southeast Asia's biggest environmental battle, opponents say the dam in central Laos would open the door for a building spree of many as 10 others on the Mekong in Laos and Cambodia, degrading its fragile ecology and affecting the livelihoods of millions of residents.

A regional river management forum is expected Thursday to approve, reject or postpone a decision on the $3.5 billion Xayaburi dam during a meeting in Cambodia of four Southeast Asian nations through which the mighty, 3,000-mile-long (4,900-kilometer-long) river flows.

However, there are signs that Laos is prepared to go ahead with the project with or without the Mekong River Commission's approval — since the decisions are not legally binding — raising questions about the effectiveness of a 15-year project to jointly manage the river.

Laos says it wants to win its neighbors' approval, but companies have already begun working on an approach road and other dam-related facilities, stating that it will "make sure that this dam will not impact countries in the lower Mekong basin."

The dam decision may be the single biggest challenge the Mekong River Commission has faced.

Meeting in April, representatives of Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Thailand agreed to defer decision in face of rare disagreement between Laos and its communist neighbor Vietnam as well as protests by nongovernment groups and villagers living along the river.

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Decision Looms on First Mekong Mainstream Dam