Mekong Dams

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taabarang
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Re: Mekong Dams

Post by taabarang »

"Most people can't be arsed reading the studies, and are not interested in the details, but that doesn't mean they don't exist."

Of course they exist, I can tell by seeing what's available at the local market over a period of years. Don't need no stinking study. Local fishing methods I.e. dynamite, hand grenades and electric shock also affect migration. Since they're not target selective many many fry never get to complete the migration.
As my old Cajun bait seller used to say, "I opes you luck.
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Re: Mekong Dams

Post by willyhilly »

Dams are usually ecological disasters, especially these days when better alternatives area available. Victoria is about to build a 320MW solar installation to be finished within a year. Speedy construction and cheap local power, that is what should be being built.
Dams probably offer more corruption money though. The people in the delta will be starving within a generation with rising salt levels and less fresh water from upstream. No fish and no rice.
Destroying wild rivers is a crime.
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Re: Mekong Dams

Post by juansweetpotato »

Large dams feed big business and the unethical businessmen who always go with them. A lot of the damage done is not just to the environment, but to large communities of people who lose their land and livelihood. And a lot of it is to feed drug addictions with sugar and off course to make vast fortunes from that addiction with processed unhealthy food.

Even if we really needed all that sugar, there has been an argument for many many years now that says to build small dams that irrigate the local farmer's fields, and which allow them to diversify their crops and increase their yields for themselves, their families, their communities and for the GDP, but which also have minimal impact on the environment and which can be much better controlled.

But some, usual fat, businessman always comes along, pulls down his pants and craps all over everything, just so he can buy another house or fast show-off car and feed his insane desire to be bigger than anyone else. These guys are the spoilt children of the world, they must be forced to let someone else play with their toys, or if not that - then at least stop stealing everyone else's toys - so the world can have a chance to recover.



Did you know that scientists are saying there has been no change in global sea temperatures in the last five years?
Last edited by juansweetpotato on Fri Feb 24, 2017 8:31 am, edited 1 time in total.
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frank lee bent
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Re: Mekong Dams

Post by frank lee bent »

5 years is a very short period to try and draw any inferences from.
you may like to have a look at this https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/sotc/global/201613
the fossil record is also quite indicative. palynology is a very accurate record of climate.
the dams we are discussing are not for irrigation at all, they are for hydroelectricity.
they are a disaster in any case.
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juansweetpotato
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Re: Mekong Dams

Post by juansweetpotato »

Most dams it seems are for irrigation/ mixed use. Electricity is often the justification for them. Clean energy - or is it?
Surely we need dams to produce cheap and clean electricity?

Hydroelectricity is cheap to produce -- once dams are built. The problem is the huge costs of building dams and the long time it takes to build them. Itaip Dam, for example, cost $20 billion and took 18 years to build. Actual costs for hydropower dams are also almost always far higher than estimated costs - on average around 30 per cent higher. Dam designers are often very optimistic about how much power their dams will produce and often fail to account for the impacts of droughts meaning that dams often produce less power than promised. Itaip generates around 20 per cent less electricity than predicted.

When these high costs, delays and risks of low river flows are factored into calculations of the costs of electricity it can be seen that hydropower is now an expensive form of power generation. Hydropower should not be considered as clean power because of the destruction of river ecosystems and its many social impacts. Internationally private investors in power projects are largely avoiding large dams and prefer to invest in cheaper and less risky gas-fired power plants.

https://www.internationalrivers.org/que ... large-dams
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Re: Mekong Dams

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Ceremonies bemoan effects of hydro dams
Wed, 15 March 2017
Martin de Bourmont

More than 200 locals, students and NGO staffers joined together yesterday to pray for Cambodia’s rivers and to raise awareness of the potential deleterious effects of the Lower Sesan II dam and the proposed 2,600-megawatt Sambor dam.

An annual International Day of Action for Rivers ceremony has taken place in Stung Treng’s Kbal Romeas village since 2015, after a community representative saw a similar ceremony in Thailand the year before and brought the idea home, said Bun Thann, a coordinator for 3S Rivers Protection Network (3SPN). This year, ceremonies also took place in Kratie province’s Koh Thnaoth village and Ratanakkiri province’s Seang Say village, Thann said.

Sem Vuthy, an alumnus of Earth Rights International’s Mekong School and a consultant on land development for NGOs, said he first pitched the idea to the Koh Thnaoth community as an opportunity to “talk about how people make their livelihood off the river and how the river is connected to the people”.

Central to the ceremonies in each province, which included dancing, painting and speeches by community elders, were prayer sessions, in which locals asked water spirits to protect their rivers from the impacts of the Lower Sesan II dam and the proposed Sambor dam.

In Stung Treng, Thann said, monks blessed the Srepok River, while indigenous Phnong people asked the spirits to preserve their river from Lower Sesan II and curse those responsible for its construction.
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/c ... hydro-dams
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Re: Mekong Dams

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

The Don Sahong Dam, located in the 4000Islands in southern Laos, is already Impacting neighbouring Cambodian communities on the Mekong. Less fish downstream from the dam means the Irrawaddy dolphins have moved elsewhere, which means less tourists and a reduced income for local people.

Dam blamed as dolphins vanish
The last remaining Irrawaddy dolphins have stopped coming to a stretch of the Mekong river in Preah Rumkel commune due to the Don Sahong hydropower dam in nearby Laos, locals have warned.

The activists from Stung Treng province say the dam, which is less than two kilometers upstream from the Cambodia-Laos border, has harmed biodiversity in the part of the river near Anlong Chher Teal, which was always home to the dolphins and had plentiful fish.

Chum Huot, a representative for the Youth for Social and Environmental Protection group, said Lao authorities had now blocked the only channel for fish to migrate to allow for construction of the dam.

He said local people have lost their source of food and income, since the area is an ecotourism attraction where visitors come to see the rare dolphins in the wild.

Mr. Huot and five members of his group have been monitoring the waterways and found the dam construction had stopped fish migration.
“Don Sahong hydropower dam is blocking the only way for fish to migrate between Cambodia, Laos and Thailand, resulting in a very high risk for national and local fisheries, and also affecting the lower Mekong basin,” he said.

He added that the blockage is affecting food security, since people rely on the river for fishing. The number of river dolphins has been dropping in recent years, but two or three were still known to frequent the area.Since fish migration was blocked, none of the dolphins have been seen.
This has led to a drop in income from tourists who had been visiting homestays in the community to experience village life and see the dolphins “The homestays have no visitors anymore,” he said. “But the Laos and Cambodian governments are doing nothing to help us.”

The company constructing the dam, Mega First Corporation Berhad, say they completed an environmental impact survey before starting the work. They say the study showed no evidence of potential damage to the local ecosystem.

http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/36700/ ... ns-vanish/
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Popeye
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Re: Mekong Dams

Post by Popeye »

As per ' willyhilly " posted !!!!

Dams probably offer more corruption money though ???

Corruption here in Cambodia !!!!!!!! :facepalm:

OK, enough said.
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Re: Mekong Dams

Post by willyhilly »

Australian electrical production from hydro down 26%. Lack of rainfall to blame.
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Re: Mekong Dams

Post by Barang chgout »

Yeah but its all good coz Turncoat has Snowy 2 and clean coal....

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