Give the Mekong River Commission a fair chance
It is surprising and worrying to see that so many newspaper articles on the Mekong channel improvement and so-called “rock-blasting”, written by so-called experts, are popping up at least once a week in the international press.
Regrettably they are spreading inaccurate and misleading information. Even the presence of a few survey vessels from China between Chiang Saen and Chiang Khong seems to be enough to ring alarm bells and to stir up the population and local environmentalists with news that the Chinese will soon come to destroy the entire Mekong by rock blasting reefs and rapids and dredging shoals under their Mekong-Lancang navigation improvement programme.
It is clear to me that the authors haven’t the slightest idea of what this “rock blasting” means. It is most probable they have never seen it and even if they have, they still don’t know what the result is.
After 26 years of experience of the Mekong (starting from my time with the Interim Mekong Committee in 1991) and several more years on other great rivers in Africa and Europe, I feel it my duty to elaborate on this “reef clearance” in order to reach a correct understanding.
No one doubts that using dynamite for river works and rock clearance is an environmental issue: the price to pay for a better future from environmental friendly waterway transport compared to polluting road transport. It is the developer’s responsibility indeed to design such navigation channel causing the minimum of damage to the environment and the aquatic life habitat. And such responsibility starts with a detailed survey, which is now going on.
No one benefits from a ruined river for the sake of destruction. Channel design is a skill that searches for the best solution in a difficult river stretch where scattered rock outcrops and submerged obstacles challenge safe navigation. It must be stressed that the “navigation clearance” does not take more than a 40-to-45-metre-width for a two-way channel for vessels of 500-tonnes, the size of ship accepted by all four member countries of the MRC. The developer has no reason to destroy anything out of the channel boundaries but to create new habitat by storing the debris from rock cropping and chiselling out of the navigation channel thereby producing a similar constraint to the low flow of the river. This is necessary for keeping the same water-discharge levels up and downstream from the working area (reef). There is no reason for dumping debris in deep holes, as is often alleged.
Alarmist articles stating that the Mekong will be destroyed are disturbing and misleading. It is a grave exaggeration. It gives the feeling that the writer doubts the MRC’s genuine concern for the well-being of the river and its ecology. Correct information starts with factual reporting, not assumptions. All people living along the Mekong have the right to be correctly and objectively informed on the proceedings and the situation of their fishing grounds. They should be informed by the responsible authorities and other trustworthy sources of what exactly will be done, without any exaggeration and without any suspicious motive.
The Mekong River Commission is indispensable in this role. Being an intergovernmental agency, the commission is the only organisation in the region exercising this role. Sadly the commission has a well-defined mandate for its operations. No way it has the authority and the power, for instance, to stop the building of dam projects submitted by members for consultation, despite their potential negative impacts.
Nonetheless, the commission remains the only suitable and practical forum to openly discuss the impacts and search for mitigation measures or alternative solutions. This process is now underway for the Pak Beng Dam and constructive negotiations with the submitting country and the developer are ongoing, with the lessons learnt from the Xayabouri and the Don Sahong hydropower experience. It is therefore unfair to continue blaming this organisation of making the same mistakes when even not the slightest results from these negotiations are known yet. Mainstream development projects are sheer political decisions for which the implementation procedures have been outlined in the 1995 Mekong agreement, and throughout the years these procedures have been refined and enforced through mutual understanding and common sense.
This column was written by a former MRC staffer and waterway expert with the endorsement of the current MRC chief executive officer.
