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dam-l LS: Huge Viet dam devastates Se San valley and its people
Following is the transcript of a two page spread that recently appeared in
the Phnom Penh Post regarding the study that Ian Baird recently helped
coordinate in Ratanakiri, Cambodia.
Huge Viet dam devastates Se San valley and its people
[Photo: Kreung women from Lam Pat village cross the parched river bed of
the once mighty Se San]
[The immensity of the Yali Falls dam can be grasped by comparing the same
orange construction crane]
[40-gallon drums can be seen on the ground to the left of the crane.]
[the belly of a child from Ta Lao village showing skin disease also
believed caused by the Se San]
Vietnam's $1 billion Yali Falls dam, under construction for the past seven
years, drains into the Se San river which runs through Cambodia to the
Mekong. Before the dam-building began, no study was done of its
environmental effect on Cambodia. Now, as Bou Saroeun reports, a study has
been done, and shows that the dam is bringing death, disease and
environmental devastation to Cambodia even before it is fully working.
EARLIER this year the first reports began to emerge from Ratanakkiri that
problems had developed with the Se San river, and that the source of these
problems was upstream at Vietnam's new Yali Falls dam.
Cambodians along the Se San river told of sudden surges of water drowning
five people. In the single worst case three teenage girls were drowned
trying to cross the river. Villagers spoke of their fishing boats and nets
being swept away, livestock being drowned and crops inundated.
Meetings were held between Vietnamese and Cambodian officials and
assurances were given that there would be no more releases of water without
prior warning. At that point both sides said the matter had been resolved
and that was an end to it.
However a report issued this week shows that sudden releases of water were
only one of a host of problems.
A community-based study of the effects of the dam conducted by the
Ratanakkiri Fisheries Office in cooperation with the Non-Timber Forest
Products (NTFP) Project funded by Oxfam, concluded that the dam has caused
and is causing serious environmental and socio-economic problems downstream
on the Se San in Cambodia's Ratanakkiri and Stung Treng provinces.
The reports says interviews with locals revealed that the death toll from
drowning stood at 32 rather than five - and most of the victims were children.
In addition, locals reported 952 deaths from disease since they perceived a
change in water quality over the past four years. Stock losses have been
reported in the thousands as well as significant numbers of wild animals
dying after drinking water from the river.
A two-day workshop attended by representatives of ethnic minority groups
living on the Tonle Se San, local and international NGOs, and provincial
officials, was held at the end of May to discuss the effect of the dam.
The majority of people living along the affected parts of the Se San are
ethnic minorities. Their representatives who attended the workshop demanded
that the clock be turned back.
"I want the Se San river to be restored to its natural state," said Lamas
Voen from Phi village, Se San commune, O'Yadao district, the closest
Cambodian settlement to the dam.
"We have suffered flooding for four years. I don't know what we are going
to do. We just sit and wait to see what will happen next. You [dam
builders] have to think how hard our lives are."
She complained that the water used to be clear even in the dry season, but
now it was permanently dirty and too unhealthy for humans and animals.
The call for changing the river back was far more dominant than any request
for cash compensation.
"If they want to give us compensation will they be able to feed us all our
lives? It seems impossible, and what about our children and grandchildren?
How are they going to survive? We want the old Se San back so we can fish
and do other activities the same as before."
According to the study, the water quality has deteriorated greatly since
1996. Surges of water coming downstream are reddish in color, muddy and
have the foul odor of stagnant water.
The report could not quantify the health effects of the water quality, but
noted that people living along the river reported a rapid decline in health
once the changes became apparent.
Locals complain of intense itchiness, lumps and infections on their skin,
and eye irritation. They have also reported other health problems that have
coincided with the sudden rises in water levels.
These included stomach aches, diarrhea, respiratory problems, throat and
nose irritation, dizziness, vomiting and coughing. Many reported family
members dying one to five days after becoming ill.
Bou On, 58, of the Kachok ethnic minority group, represented Kachot village
of Ven Say district at the conference; she said her own health had suffered
as a result of poor water quality.
She complained of itchiness, diarrhea, vomiting and a persistent cough.
"I am not lying about the water quality. It is real," she said, showing the
marks of illness on her body.
"I am sure the water quality has changed a lot since before."
Villagers also complained about the effects the water has had on their
livestock.
Sala Kwek, of the Kachok ethnic minority group living in Kachot village,
Nhang commune, Andong Meas district, said that since the dam construction
started, his village lost hundreds of buffalo and cows; sometimes 20 to 30
died each day.
According to the study, villagers claimed that more than 4,900 buffalo have
died of unusual diseases since the water quality problem began in 1996.
They also reported the similar deaths of more than 2,200 cows, 7,800 pigs,
1,600 ducks, tens of thousands of chickens, and more than 2,500 dogs and cats.
However similar outbreaks of livestock disease have been recorded far away
from the Se San river, though occurring at the same time that locals say
the river water quality started to decline. A CARERE official said that
makes it hard to draw definite conclusions about the cause and effect of
the dam on livestock health.
Still, villagers remain convinced that water quality in the Se San river
has harmed their domestic animals, with the greatest effects being noted
near the river.
Dr Lena Vought, an expert on lakes, ponds and streams from Lund University
in Sweden, has suggested that the problem may be associated with the
presence of toxic blue-green algae in the Yali reservoir contaminating the
Se San.
Since there has never been any detailed water quality surveys conducted in
the Se San in Ratanakkiri, it is difficult to confirm this hypothesis.
But, if blue-green algae is causing the problem, it has probably developed
in the Yali reservoir, where excessive nutrients have been released from
the decaying vegetation causing excessive algae growth.
Dr Vought said in the study that there have been similar cases where water
contaminated with the toxic blue-green algae has proved fatal to livestock.
Ratanakkiri province has some of the richest areas of wildlife in Cambodia,
but these animals too have been seriously affected by the hydrological
changes in the Se San as well as suffering from the effects of the water
quality changes.
In Virachey National Park, on the northern side of the Se San river in Ta
Veng and Ven Say districts, reptiles, mammals and birds have died or become
ill at a greater than usual rate.
People from many communities along the Se San have reported finding dead
wildlife near their villages over the past few years. Many villagers
believe that the wild animals had gone down to the Se San river to drink
and then died shortly afterwards.
The species most affected were wild boar, barking deer and sambar deer. In
addition, a small number of civet cats, porcupines and rodents have also
been found dead in the forest.
People from O'Yadao district, near the Vietnamese border, reported finding
10 dead Gaur near the Se San river over the last year.
The changing water quality is also believed to have harmed fish stocks and
habitat.
The number of fish has declined noticeably, with some villagers putting
fish stocks down by as much as 30 percent.
Meanwhile four years of irregular flooding have caused major food shortages
to people in the area.
Dry season crops which are planted along the banks of the Se San have been
swept away by the surges of water following discharges from the dam.
Locals now rely on wild potatoes and other tubers to sustain them.
"We have no rice to eat; we survive with the wild potatoes and bamboo
shoots mixed with banana fruit to make the porridge," said Bou On.
She said food that was collected and stored like prahok was no longer
available because of the decline in fish stocks.
Sal Kway, deputy chief of Se San commune, explained how the villagers can
no longer plan how to plant their crops because the unpredictable water
levels in the dry season can wipe out their work - and their seed stocks,
which they could not afford to lose.
To Peav, 50, of the Taveng commune committee, echoed Kway's comments and
added that people were being forced to travel increasing distances to
forage for food.
He said the tubers and cassava that they rely on for food during the rainy
season when the rice had run out were being destroyed by the excessive
flooding.
Peav said he was disappointed that the Government had persuaded the hill
tribes people to come down from the mountains and settle along the Se San
river in the vain idea of national progress.
"How can we progress the country without food to eat?" he asked.
"We want the country to progress, but how can it while we can't grow rice,
farm or even have a garden?"
He said people needed food for their day-to-day living before they can
think about progress.
The lack of food security in villages along the Se San river is
particularly critical this year. Lowland areas have been devastated by the
floods while the upland swidden farms have been badly affected by early
rains in 1999. Hence very little rice has been stockpiled since last year.
Villages that used to have rice surplus, such as Ko Piak and Pak Kalan of
Ven Say district, are below subsistence level.
In addition, the study said that about 14 types of river plants that
villagers used to collect to eat have been in serious decline over the past
few years.
Tobacco, one of the most popular plants that villagers used to grow along
the river bank, is now impossible to cultivate.
Vat Chrang, 30, of Tom Pong Roeung Thom village, said that he and other
villagers were disappointed that they had had to give up on the crop.
"I care more about tobacco than rice; if I don't have tobacco I don't have
energy to harvest or do farm work," he said. "Tobacco is my first energy."
One of the most important dry season occupations for local people living
along the Se San river used to be gold panning.
It was especially important in Andong Meas and O'Yadao districts, where
gold is plentiful in the river bed.
Local people used to rely on gold panning to supply them with funds to buy
rice in years of shortages, and when they wanted to buy a buffalo or a cow,
gold panning was the main means of getting the cash to do so.
Of 59 villages surveyed, 47 reported that they used to do gold panning
until the dam started causing water level fluctuations. In the upper parts
of the basin, it is the fear of surges of water sweeping people away that
has stopped people panning. Further downstream, locals have stopped because
the holes they dig in the riverbed to find the gold silt up when the water
rises.
The irregular water pattern of the Se San is now looking likely to force
the hill tribes back to their historical practice of swidden (slash and
burn) farming.
Sal Kway said the last few years beside the Se San have been very
difficult. He said they want to abandon their villages but were wary
because they realize it would be against the government's wishes.
"Now that we live along the Se San river we suffer from the floods and if
we go to live in the hills we go against the government policy. I don't
know how to solve this problem," he said.
Vat Chrang's answer is to try to live a double life. He has slashed an area
in the uplands for a rice crop but still lives in his village on the Se
San. He said the situation was not ideal, because the farm is far from the
market and he has to spend two hours each way traveling.
According to the study, other villagers living along the Se San river have
adopted a similar strategy.
For example, 20 Lao families from Hat Pok village have started doing
swidden agriculture in upland areas far from their villages. In Pong and
Fang villages, two other Lao communities in Ven Say district, most of the
people in the villages have started doing swidden agriculture behind their
communities, although they have little experience at this type of farming.
According to villagers in Pong village, the forest behind their village has
all been flattened as a result, and they admit that they are not adept at
the technique compared to the upland farmers.
But many village leaders spoken to by the study team feel they have no
option but to abandon their villages and return to higher ground and farm
as their forebears did - clearing areas of forest and growing crops till
the land is exhausted then moving on.
The study says that the people living along the Se San river in Ratanakkiri
belong to a diverse array of ethnic groups, and have significant cultural
differences.
However, except for the Lao and the Chinese, who are largely Buddhist, the
vast majority of the indigenous people living along the Se San river in
Ratanakkiri are animists, with deep spiritual connections to nature and the
spirit world.
They attribute the flooding and subsequent water damage to forest spirits
becoming angry.
Bou On and other workshop participants spoken to by the Post said that
before they learned about Vietnam's Yali Falls dam-building, they used to
believe the spirits were angry with the people but did not know why.
"I sacrificed chickens and sometimes the villagers sacrificed the buffaloes
and cows to the spirits so they would not get angry with us and save us.
But nothing changed," she said.
Most of the people spoken to did not know about the Yali Falls dam until
long after the river became erratic, and attributed the river's behavior to
the spirits. Now that they know about the dam, they are still inclined to
think the spirits are playing a part.
One old Tampuan woman, from Kachon Kroam village in Ven Say district,
provided a spiritual explanation for why the people along the Se San river
are suffering so much from the dam.
"I think the spirit of the water and the spirit of the trees are angry with
the humans," she said. "The Vietnamese have blocked the path of the spirits
of the water, and the dam has caused many big trees in the reservoir area
to be flooded.
"Therefore, both the spirit of the water and the spirits of the big trees
are angry. When the Vietnamese release the water downstream from the
reservoir, it is like releasing the angry spirits upon us and the spirits
make us sick and cause a lot of us to die."