Villagers at Risk from Myanmar Dam

[soiarrai]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/M/MYANMAR_DAM?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2007-04-12-15-40-33&reload=true

 

Apr 12, 3:40 PM EDT

 

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- Tens of thousands of villagers could be displaced and a fragile ecosystem destroyed by a hydropower project being built on northeastern Myanmar's Salween River, an international conservation group said Thursday.

 

Construction on the Ta Sang hydropower plant, which includes a dam, began earlier this year in a joint venture between Myanmar's government and Thai power producer MDX Group. It is unclear when it will be finished.

 

WWF claims that damming the Salween, one of Southeast Asia's last untamed rivers, will "displace and negatively impact upon tens of thousands of poor and marginalized people from ethnic minorities in that country."

 

"The Salween is the only free-flowing river linking the Himalayan glaciers to the coastline of the Andaman Sea," said Robert Mather of the WWF's Living Mekong Program.

 

"We are destroying the Salween before we even know what we're losing," Mather said. "From what little we do know about its large number of endemic fish species and abundance of freshwater turtles, we can conclude it is likely to be globally exceptional."

 

A spokesman for the Myanmar government, Ye Htut, countered that the dam site is in a remote area and that "very few people will need to relocated for the hydro project."

 

"The Myanmar government will use every means to limit environmental effect on project area," he said via e-mail. "But we should not forget that industrialized countries have caused more damage to the environment then developing countries and have given very little assistance to environmental conservation works in developing countries."

 

A spokesman for MDX could not be immediately reached for comment.

 

Local environmental groups have said damming the Salween, called the Thanlwin in Myanmar, would degrade one of the region's most biologically diverse areas - one that has been designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

 

The government and DMX last year signed a $6 billion agreement to build the 7,110-megawatt plant about 300 miles northeast of Myanmar's largest commercial city, Yangon.

 

Most of the electricity from the project will be sold to neighboring Thailand. Myanmar will get an unspecified amount of free power.

 

Myanmar faces constant power shortages, with many parts of the country suffering frequent outages.

 

The plant is one of several dam projects planned on the Salween in the next 15 years. Myanmar signed a memorandum of understanding this month with two Chinese firms to build a second, 2,400-megawatt hydropower plant on the river, although it is unclear when construction would start.

 

WWF and other groups have urged Thailand to better manage its energy needs and invest in wind and biomass projects within its borders, rather than turning to hydropower.

 

"It seems more reasonable for Thailand to rely on its own reserves of natural gas for energy security than to be dependent on imports of electricity from a neighboring country with a high degree of political uncertainty," said Kraisak Choonavan, a former Thai lawmaker.

 

Myanmar, long ruled by a military junta, has drawn international criticism for stifling democracy and its poor human rights record. The country, formerly called Burma, has also long faced insurgencies among various ethnic groups.

[foreigner]

This has been reported for several years .. I think it's 5 dams that are planned for the Salween.

the rights of tribal people are not going to trump industrial development.

renewable / pollution free electricity + a drought resistant water supply are big positives.

 

coal power plants or displace a few Mon & Karen .. sad choice, but realistic IMHO.

 

the Chinese damns on the Mae Khong had it so dry this year river traffic was stopped .. couple years ago it was down to 1m in sections.

 

[bust]

Relocation is one thing...........displacement is something different.