 |
|
SALWEEN WATCH HOTMAIL OUT
BACKGROUND DOCUMENTS RELATING TO THE SALWEEN MEGADAM Salween Watch 24th February 1999 Vol.1 --------------------------------------- OVERVIEW OF THE SALWEEN DAM PLANS
Up to December 1998 it appears that studies exist for 5 dam sites on the Salween. A few other earlier and less serious studies have also been done. In addition at least 16 studies have been done to dam the smaller rivers that flow into it. Despite -- indeed because of -- the number of plans nothing is particularly certain as to what will be done where, or when - if ever - it would be done. Some of the uncertainty comes from the many different interest groups:- different Thai politicians, the SPDC, foreign and local business and industrial groups. These compete on the national and local levels for projects and locations that most benefit themselves. However it also appears that to a degree the dam planners create this uncertainly deliberately so as to prevent opposition from becoming too organised. A similar pattern of dissembling and concealment was evident also in the gas pipeline preparations. Few of the dam plans go beyond preliminary or even reconnaissance study stage. All would need pre-feasibility and feasibility studies. Most of the dams would be impossible to build. Obviously the costs of constructing the dams and related infrastructure would be very high, and some of the plans are simply too impractical. Many of the potential dam sites overlap each other. Flood waters from some sites would inundate areas where other dam sites have been suggested. In 1994 the ADB employed the Norwegian consultancy company Norconsult to evaluate energy projects in the Greater Mekong Subregion. Norconsult recommended that a study should be done of the whole Salween river basin to choose the most logical sites to develop. This would be called the "Thanlwin Basin Hydropower Development Study". Without access to internal ADB information it appears that either the study has not yet been performed, or the study currently begun by the Thai Government is actually it. It's aim would be to look at all the plans to make dams on the Salween and the small rivers that run into it. The Thanlwin Basin Study would aim to identify the places along the river where dams could be made. It would look at where, how high, how many, how big the dams might be, and at some of their impacts (sic). It would then possibly recommend not just one but a whole series of dams on the Salween. It would suggest which dams would be made first. If approved, these would then be built one after another as funds became available. The whole Salween River and its large tributaries might one day be dammed. Some of the dams planned for the Salween River are very big, the biggest in South East Asia. The area flooded by the dam's waters would cover many of the fertile low-lying areas of the upper Salween Valley. A large dam on the Salween in the Shan State could cover between 100 to 1,000 square kilometres of riverbank, forest and farmland. Tunnels and canals many kilometres long might also be built to take water out of the Salween and put it into the Chaophraya River. If earlier ministerial statements are followed up on some 10 percent of all the water that goes down the river could be pumped out and into other rivers altogether. The average annual river flow of the Salween is said to be 124,000,000,000 cubic metres per year. Ten percent of this would therefore be around 12 billion cubic metres of water. One engineer source, although unverifiable, even mentions a remarkable 30 -40 percent of all the Salween River's flow being diverted to Thailand over 40 billion cubic meters of water. |
