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dam-l LS: Bank Admits to Serious Problems at Lao Dam

The following article appears in the February 1999 edition of World Rivers
Review. Please do not reprint without permission from IRN. Thank you.

Bank Admits to Serious Problems at Lao Dam

by Aviva Imhof

After months of sustained lobbying by NGOs, the Asian Development Bank
(ADB) has admitted that the Theun-Hinboun hydropower project is having a
substantial impact on the livelihoods of thousands of people in central
Laos. The admission is particularly significant because until recently the
ADB was claiming the project to be a "winner" with "little for the
environment lobby to criticize." 

The US$260 million dam, which was partially funded by the ADB and the
Norwegian government, opened in April 1998. NGOs have since raised concerns
about the project's impacts and the lack of available funds to compensate
villagers for their losses. 

In a report based on a visit by ADB staff to the project site last
November, the Bank admits that it had previously defined the project impact
zone too narrowly and that many more villages further downstream have been
negatively affected.

The Bank identified the following impacts:
o	Village water supplies have been disrupted by the dam's changes to water
levels in three rivers - the Nam Hai, Nam Hinboun and Nam Theun. Seventeen
villages have thus far been identified as affected. The impacts on many
more villages in the newly defined project impact zone are unknown. 
o	All villages visited reported decreased fish catches, smaller fish being
caught, and greater difficulty catching fish. Two villages claim they have
given up fishing because it is too difficult now.
o	Virtually all villages reported the loss of gardens. Some report that
more time is now required to maintain and water gardens that have had to be
moved to higher, less fertile ground. 
o	Two areas upstream of the dam and 26 villages downstream of the
powerhouse have had dry season river crossings impeded by the rise in water
levels.
o	There has been extensive erosion of banks along the Nam Hai and, to a
more limited extent the Nam Hinboun, which has resulted in high
sedimentation of those rivers.

The Bank acknowledges that villagers deserve to be compensated for all of
their losses. The Theun Hinboun Power Company (THPC) has apparently agreed
to undertake a survey of all villages to determine impacts and to allow the
company to immediately compensate for losses. In addition, the THPC is
developing a fisheries management plan, and will continue to monitor
fisheries impacts with a view to providing compensation.
The ADB is not clear on where additional funds for compensation will come
from, but implies that the THPC will shoulder these costs out of project
revenues. 

Like many other projects in Laos, the dam proceeded without accurate
information as to what the social and environmental costs of the project
would be or how compensation and mitigation measures would be funded. The
project's budget for compensation was limited to $50,000, most of which was
spent on buying land for the transmission-line towers. 

Because there is no pre-project baseline data with which to compare project
impacts, it will be quite difficult to assess compensation. Whether
adequate reparations will be paid to the affected people remains to be seen. 





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Aviva Imhof
South-East Asia Campaigns
International Rivers Network
1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley CA 94703 USA
Tel: + 1 510 848 1155 (ext. 312), Fax: + 1 510 848 1008
Email: aviva@irn.org, Web: http://www.irn.org
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