John Lowrie
5. Mekong: Dam, Sand and Blast: Confluence of Calamities
Phnom Penh Tonle Sap Riverside. To the right you can see the confluence with the Mekong and just downstream it separates again to form the Tonle Bassac that runs past my Takhmau home. A laden sand-barge is deep in the water. The hotel is a recent addition to the Chroy Changvar peninsula. Here is where sand was pumped to fill in Boueng Kak Lake, the latest of the capital's lakes to be lost to urban development. Despite that frenzied development of late, the lady with her handcart denotes that for many life goes on. It's always hard-labour, made even harder by destroying the Mekong's bounty.
Mekong: Dam, Sand and Blast: Confluence of Calamities
Personal images and anecdotes to go with the unfolding tragedy of the River Mekong and communities depending on it.
The Mekong is one of the world's great iconic rivers. I first heard about it as a boy when it featured in newscasts about the Vietnam War. In 1998 when I first came to Cambodia my initial assignment was in Kratie upstream. We went there by boat from Phnom Penh. An awful lot has changed along the river since 1998. Much has been truly awful.
Our Mekong Campaign
This Mekong campaign is waged by an amazing range of local and international people from humble fisher-folks and farmers to leading academics in the field of rivers and their geography.
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My role is quite modest. I have observed for more than 20 years - over a beer or two - the round-the-clock pumping of sand, plying of sand-barges, along with loading and off-loading of sand along the Tonle Bassac in Takhmau, Kandal Province, Cambodia. In 2010 Mekong waters flooded our house. Every year we must wade through murky torrents in Phnom Penh. I have seen one of my special interest groups - indigenous people - badly affected by dam-construction and by a major disaster. You can read more about these and my other river associations in my personal blog. Here I give a quick guide to issues surrounding the Mekong with more reading.
One of the earliest images : Takhmau Tonle Bassac 2008.
"The costs and benefits of large dam-building are indeed unequally distributed. Poor people are disproportionally affectedby large dams, such as people depending on fisheries and the ‘rice bowl of Asia’ irrigated by the Mekong River. Thewinners are Chinese firms, mostly SOEs, as well as local elites such as in the Cambodian government."
The 2019-20 annual rainy season gave the starkest warning yet. The level of the Mekong did not rise as early as it does usually or as much as in previous years, with dire consequences soon following. We could see this coming very early on.
There seems to be little or no proper planning
around the Mekong. Most notably I have never seen professional hydrologists at work despite formally asking the relevant ministry to commission them. Phnom Penh, as well as built on a major confluence, is also – or was – home to several large lakes. Their names are familiar to all visitors such as Boueng Keng Kang; Boueng Trabek, and Boueng Kak. “Boueng” in Khmer means “Lake”. Boeung Keng Kang, in the main central business area, even when the Mekong is low is prone to flooding, hence my comment about wading through water every year.
Land Management and Planning have been fraught with problems in Cambodia for many years, not just the lack of professional inputs such as hydrologists . Land-grabbing and forced displacement of ordinary people is common. A well-intentioned project to address shortcomings was cut short in 2009. It has never resumed despite our representations and a World Bank Inspection Panel report.
Around our house in Takhmau natural ponds and drainage channels have been
blocked by landfill
to be built on and to construct roads. Some artificial drains have been built, not to any obvious plan, and they are rarely cleaned so block-up often. All around Phnom Penh there is on a grander scale, landfill; destruction of natural drainage, and inadequate sewage and storm-water disposal. The Mekong and entire environment are treated with no respect whatsoever.
My Mekong Twitter Storm
Prior to 2020, the 2019 wet season was one of the driest on record. The annual reversal of the Tonle Sap in Cambodia was severely delayed in 2019 but low rainfall plus upstream dam regulation (mostly from China's 11 mainstream Mekong dams) have totally erased the annual reversal of the Tonle Sap for 2020. This comparative image compares two extremely dry late September images. Remember September 25, 2019 was comparatively very year, so the flooding you see in the 2019 image is at a very low level compared to normal conditions. The September 16, 2020 image shows the Tonle Sap bottleneck at much lower levels - in fact, this is what the Tonle Sap bottleneck looks like for much of the Mekong's dry season which runs from December to May annually.
