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SALWEEN WATCH HOTMAIL OUT
BACKGROUND DOCUMENTS RELATING TO THE SALWEEN MEGADAM Salween Watch 24th February 1999 Vol.1 --------------------------------------- The conservative Japanese government has recently introduced a US $ 30 billion fund called the Miyazawa fund. The fund is to give a boost to regional governments but has been made subject to the condition that funded projects utilise Japanese expertise and technology. Japan has supported many dam projects in the past, and Japanese consultants from the quasi-governmental Electric Power Development Corporation (EPDC) have been active in the preliminary studies for damming the Salween. One source alleges that EPDC has now signed a 94 million yen (US$796,000) contract to do a feasibility study on the Salween. It is therefore possible that the Japanese Government - and other governments and institutions - may decide to support their political agendas in Burma through support for the dam via the Thai government. The Thai Science, Technology and Environment Minister and his Deputy Minister have both announced the intention to seek from Japan for the Salween Water Diversion Project. As reported by the English language daily The Nation (21/1/99) "the project needs about Bt 5.5 billion, which (he) plans to get from the Miyazawa Plan". With Japanese funding as an engine, the project may in time become a serious possibility if people's opposition is not convincing enough. Towards implementing the dam project on the ground, there have been a number of preliminary studies done on damming or diverting the Salween River. Tentative plans for no less than 6 different sites have been mentioned in various contexts and publications. However until recent moves became evident there had been no detailed studies, and no planning up to even the pre-feasibility study stage. Survey work is being conducted in the Shan State at a site 200 kilometers north of Chiang Mai. Work is being done by multinational survey teams that include Japanese, Burmese and Thais. Surveying work reportedly includes drilling and blasting deep holes in the Salween riverbank and elaborate streamflow measurements. People close to the project say that the full feasibility study was to begin on 1st January 1999, although detailed fieldwork was already underway in October. The work is being done at a steep gorge an hour upstream of a major river crossing point called Ta Hsang on the road between Mong Pan and Mong Ton The gorge is a little distance south of the confluence of the Salween and the Nam Hsim River, one of the larger tributaries. Ta Hsang is of relatively high elevation, a most important factor if large amounts of water are to be diverted and made to flow by gravity into Thailand. The chosen survey site is also close to both of Thailand's Ping and Kok Rivers. It is along these watercourses that water may be diverted through a long system of tunnels and canals into the Bhumiphol and Sirikit dams, Thailand's two largest. The main visible company involved in the survey work is MDX Power Plc., a Thai development company specialising in dam consultancy and construction. An MDX company representative claims it has signed a contract with the Burmese government to do the feasibility study. It also claims to be putting up the money itself to do the work, despite rumours that the company and its partner Italian - Thai Development Plc. are both currently financially weak. It is not currently clear or confirmed as to the level of EPDC involvement in the surveying, or if they are channeling funds to MDX to do the groundwork and to employ local contractors. In the context of the Ta Hsang site the involvement of MDX Power Plc. is especially significant. This is because the company for the past 2 years has been involved in surveying a potential dam site on the Kok River, along with Italian-Thai and the large Japanese Marubeni Corporation. The 150 MW dam on the Burmese section of the Kok River would be no more than 25 kilometers from the floodwaters of a Salween Dam. It is less implausible than most of the other proposed water diversion schemes to assume that that the Salween would be diverted into the Kok river. Not least of the reasons why is that another controversial scheme is in the last planning stages, the Kok -Ing -Nan Water Diversion Project. The Kok - Ing - Nan Water Diversion Project aims to send water from the Kok and Ing Rivers, both tributaries of the Mekong, into the Nan River which flows into the Sirikit Dam and ultimately into the Chaophraya River. It would involve 117 kilometres of canals and tunnels and a blocking dam on the Ing River. The final feasibility study of this powerfully backed project is to be completed in February 1999. In regard to the Salween dam, a senior MDX advisor, ex-Democrat MP and government minister named Dr. Subin Pinkayan has reportedly approached the Shan armed resistance through intermediaries to persuade them not to obstruct the surveying of the dam. The Shan State Army (South) is believed to have said they will not oppose the survey but said that the dam must not be built without consultation with the people and NGO's. A logging company called Thai Sawat has reportedly been closely involved in the facilitation of these negotiations. The company, which jointly holds a concession with B & F Goodrich Co. Ltd. has been deforesting the area under concession arrangements with both the Burmese military and Khun Sa's MTA since 1989. The company has been building roads throughout the area in cooperation with the Burmese government and groups such as the southern Wa faction. of the United Wa State Party. It is believed to be seeking a concession to log the areas to be flooded by the dam. Despite the ample evidence that serious studies have been underway since at least October 1998 the Thai government did not announce any plans for damming the Salween until mid-January, after articles appeared in the South China Morning Post and local newspapers. Even then the government ministers studiously avoided mentioning the project in the context of the Sirikit Dam or the Kok- Ing - Nan Water Diversion Project, despite the logical connection between the two, and despite statements of intent by previous governments. The omission is almost certainly due to the fact that both projects are controversial and that the Thai government wishes to avoid the early linking up of the Thai anti-dam movement and the numerous groups opposing the numerous abuses of the Burmese regime. Reasons to oppose the dam abound. Its construction would have very serious environmental impacts. To raise the water level to the point where 10 percent (or more) of the Salween's flow could be pumped up to divert it into Thailand's rivers the dam would have to be a high dam. Such a dam would have a very large and long reservoir, and would flood a considerable area of forest and rice terraces up the valleys of its tributaries. For water to flow by gravity into Thailand the dam would have to be extraordinarily high and would have a massive reservoir and even greater impacts. There would be a much greater earthquake hazard in a quake prone area. Deforestation would be serious both from resettlement or illegal subsistence farming by displaced people and by logging companies that would be granted concessions in the area to be flooded. Water borne diseases such as malaria and schistosomiasis would increase or be introduced. Indigenous fish populations and land-based wildlife would be radically affected or annihilated. Riversides would be completely changed all the way down to the delta, with riverbank erosion and possible disappearance of islands in the delta. Well water supplies in the city of Moulmein would likely be affected with saltwater intrusion. Deprived of fertility from the river-borne silt, farming in the highly productive Salween floodplains would come to rely increasingly on scarce and expensive chemical inputs. Fish reproduction in the river, delta and along the coast, already affected by heavy fishing by foreign trawlers and clearance of mangrove forests would be further affected. There would be numerous impacts on the environment from the infrastructure that would be built to serve the dam. Yet more impacts would accrue from the uses to which the energy from the dam is put, such as large-scale mining and polluting industries. None of the previous dams built or planned by the Burmese government have had environmental impact assessments done for them. Even if an EIA was to be conducted it seems highly unlikely that it would be made public or given any serious attention by the authorities on either side of the border. There is little evidence that a proper environmental assessment (EIA) will be done. The project is questionable from an economic point of view due to the predictable short life of the dam due to the very high silt levels carried by the river from the increasingly deforested hills. Very long power transmission lines would need to be installed to deliver the power to Thailand and to central Burma. Similarly, very long and expensive tunnels, canals and riverbank alterations would be needed to deliver water to the dams. There is little evidence to show that a proper social impact assessment (SIA) will be done either. Given the extreme human rights violations that continue to take place in the Shan State and elsewhere in Burma it would be totally unrealistic to expect compensation to be given to those affected by the dam, let alone much improvement in their lives. The people in the region where the dam is being planned have already been subjected to 3 years of especially intense military suppression. The area to the west of the dam survey site has been the focus of the Burmese military's forced relocation program that has resulted in large-scale depopulation. According to the Shan Human Rights Foundation over 1400 small and large villages with an estimated population of 300,000 people have been affected by the forced moves. The site of the dam survey and a substantial part of the area that would be flooded by any dam built on the river is land that has seen recent forced relocations.
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