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SALWEEN WATCH HOTMAIL OUT
BACKGROUND DOCUMENTS RELATING TO THE SALWEEN MEGADAM Salween Watch 24th February 1999 Vol.1 ____________________________________ Update on the Salween Dam project in Shan State Source: BurmaNet News, Surveying for the dam on the Salween River in Shan State is now seriously underway, according to inside sources. The first serious reports of the surveying on the main body of the Salween started coming out in October 1998. These mentioned the main company involved as MDX Power Co., whose staff were crossing the Thai border at Nong Ook (up from Chiang Dao in northern Chiang Mai province) and travelling up by road to the Salween River northwest of Murng Ton. The site being surveyed was reported to be in the region of the Ta Sang / Wan Hsa La river crossing that links the roads between Murng Pan and Murng Ton in southern Shan State. Further reports received in December '98 and early January '99 have confirmed that the dam is being planned in the Ta Sang area. There is currently a major bridge being built across the river at Ta Sang. According to Shan sources, forced labour is being used to do some of the work, and there is a heavy Burmese military presence in the area. Surveying for the dam is being conducted at a site that lies one and a half hours by boat upstream from the bridge site, in an area south of the Nam Hsim River, a large tributary of the Salween and north of the village of Ta Sala. The site where most of the observed survey activities are being carried out is where the Salween passes through a steep gorge. The surveyors, assisted by Burmese army engineers have reportedly begun dynamiting and drilling a number of deep holes into the rocks at the base of the gorge and along the river. According to the reports, a series of teams including about 20 Japanese have been travelling together with Thai staff from MDX up from Nong Ook in Thailand up by road and boat to the dam site. SPDC troops have been providing security. The dam is ostensibly being planned to divert water from the Salween into Thailand, as well as to produce electricity for Thailand and Burma. It is said that it would produce an estimated 3,700 megawatts of electricity. Sources from inside Shan State have mentioned that the water diversion scheme will bring the water through Murng Paeng east of the Salween and across 300 km into Thailand. It is unsure whether the water will be brought into the River Kok (in Chiang Rai province) or the River Ping (in Chiang Mai province) or, as some opponents of the dam speculate, into both river systems. The studies of the dam projects are reported to have received funding through the Electric Power Development Co. a large Japanese quasi-governmental institution involved in previous surveys of the Salween. The dam is being planned to divert water from the Salween into Thailand, as well as to produce an estimated 3,700 megawatts of electricity for Thailand and Burma. One report from local sources mentioned that the water diversion scheme will bring the water through Murng Paeng east of the Salween and across 300 km into Thailand. It is unsure whether the water will be brought into the River Kok (in Chiang Rai province) or the River Ping (in Chiang Mai province) - or as speculated by some dam opponents, into both river systems. Grand but controversial plans are simultaneously being drawn up by Thai government agencies and Japanese consultants for a three river water diversion system for the Kok, Ing and Nan rivers that would supply water to the depleted Queen Sirikit Dam on a tributary of the Chaophraya River. Previous tentative plans exist for another dam diverting water into the Ping River that supplies Thailand's largest dam, named after King Bhumipol which is on another major tributary. A dam high enough to raise the water level to the point where 10 percent or more of the Salween's flow could be diverted into Thailand's rivers would have to be extraordinarily high. Such a dam would have a massive reservoir, and many serious environmental impacts. Even the most modest version of such a scheme would involve a very high dam wall, elaborate canals and tunnels, and may also require pumping of the water. The cost would be very high. Figures quoted by local sources familiar with the project for the cost of the planned dam range widely from 4 billion to 7 billion US dollars. Under normal economic circumstances the cost of building such a project would make it unthinkable. However it is thought that some of the US$30 billion provided under the Miyazawa Fund initiative of the Japanese government is the driving motivation for the potential dam builders. The people in the region where the dam is being planned are already paying a high cost for the dam project. The area has been the focus of the Burmese military's forced relocation program that has driven over 300,000 Shan villagers from their homes during the last 3 years. The area where the dam is being planned is in the heart of the operating area of the Shan States Army-South, the main active Shan resistance group. There are obviously considerable strategic benefits for the SPDC in building the dam, similar to those gained by the activities of the Thai and Chinese loggers and the builders of the Yadana gas pipeline. A senior MDX advisor, ex-Democrat MP and government minister named Dr.
Subin Pinkayan has |
