HANOI (AFP) - As Laos plans to turn itself into the "battery" of Southeast Asia through hydropower, environmental groups warned Tuesday that a nearly decade-old dam had harmed tens of thousands of villagers.
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The Association for International Water Studies (FIVAS) said the Theun-Hinboun project in central Laos had led to dangerous river surges and damaged farms and fisheries by creating higher, faster and muddier water flows.
The Norwegian group, in a report published Tuesday, cautioned against a planned expansion of the project, saying it would only do more harm and require mass resettlements of people living along the tributaries of the Mekong river.
FIVAS also warned that Laos' "growing predilection for large trans-basin diversion projects ... is essentially a journey into the unknown, which could have grave consequences for the region well into the future."
Laos, a rural economy and one of Asia's poorest countries, is now constructing about 10 new dams and considering plans for some 70 more, to sell the electricity to power-hungry neighbours Thailand, Vietnam and China.
The largest project so far, the World Bank-backed, French-built 1.45-billion-dollar Nam Theun 2 dam, is set for completion in late 2009 and will sell 90 percent of its generated electricity to Thailand.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has argued that dams allow Laos to earn foreign exchange and that "economic development in Lao PDR will inevitably involve development of the hydropower potential of some of its rivers."
Development banks and the Lao communist government say dam revenues will help alleviate poverty -- but activists have stressed their ecological impacts and voiced fears that much of the money will be squandered.
The FIVAS report on the Theun-Hinboun project, based on field visits earlier this year, said researchers found that, despite remediation efforts, the dam had hurt villagers' livelihoods in a variety of ways:
-- Fish stocks, a key source of protein, had declined and some aquatic resources such as molluscs, shrimp and edible weed had disappeared, while fish ponds built as mitigation measures had had no measurable impact.
-- Fluctuating water levels and stronger flows had eroded the banks of the Nam Hai and Hinboun rivers, leading to the loss of fertile agricultural land, riverbank gardens, fruit trees and other vegetation.
-- Flooding and higher sediment load downstream from the dam had worsened and villagers had repeatedly lost wet season rice crops, leading many to abandon their paddy fields.
-- Increased flooding from sometimes unannounced water releases had also drowned livestock, swept away boats and fishing gear, and made river crossings more dangerous for school children and people visiting relatives.
The FIVAS report asserted that a mitigation and compensation programme for villagers had "not lived up to expectations and is failing to restore peoples livelihoods."
Projects to promote irrigated dry season rice cultivation, build fish ponds and introduce new livestock had failed or were insufficient, and residents had not been compensated for their economic losses, it said.
The US-based International Rivers Network (IRN) also criticised the Theun-Hinboun dam and warned against plans to expand it, which it said would double the downstream water volume and exacerbate existing damage.
"It is irresponsible for the Theun-Hinboun Power Company to proceed with this expansion project when thousands of people are still waiting for compensation from the existing project," said the IRN's Aviva Imhof.
The Theun-Hinboun Power Company is co-owned by Norway's state-owned power utility Statkraft, a Thai firm and the Lao government, and received funding from the ADB and the Nordic Development Fund
