Hydropower dams

Cambodia on Tuesday defended its plan to build the 108-megawatt Chhay Areng River hydropower plant in a jungle in southwestern Koh Kong province, saying the project would greatly contribute to developing the energy sector. “An initial study found that the project has a capacity of 108 ...

The construction of Koh Kong’s Cheay Areng hydrowpower dam will cost USD 400 million and be completed by 2020, said Energy Secretary of State Ith Prang Tuesday. Speaking at a press conference, he said the study of the dam and its impact on environment has been ...

Minister of Mines and Energy Suy Sem has issued a letter to the National Assembly commission on the environment, offering assurances that the planned Stung Cheay Areng Hydropower Dam will meet high environmental and social standards. Opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party member Te Chanmony on September ...

Villagers whose homes will be destroyed if the controversial Lower Sesan 2 Dam is built are to deliver today a letter to provincial authorities announcing that they refuse to be resettled. Meach Mean, coordinator of the 3S Rivers Protection Network, said the villagers, who hail from ...

Authorities in western Cambodia have detained 11 activists after they tried to stop further studies for a planned Chinese-built dam. About 30 local villagers and environmental activists in the Areng Valley went to the area Monday to protect barricades they had erected earlier this year to ...

Cambodians staged a protest Thursday to share the concerns of more than a quarter of a million people who are calling on Laos to suspend construction of the Don Sahong hydropower project on the Mekong River. At the protest Chhith Sam Ath, country director of the ...

A large-scale hydropower dam in China began releasing a deluge of water from its overfilling reservoir on Friday, leaving downstream neighbours to fear imminent inundation. ...

On the Sesan and Srepok rivers in the northeast, boats of all shapes and sizes lug timber back and forth between the banks. Men wait on craggy land alongside the water with jerry-rigged winches and homemade vehicles to drag precious cargo up steep inclines. Fallen ...

Following a meeting with a visiting U.S. diplomat on Wednesday, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Secretary of State Ouch Borith said the U.S. shares Cambodia’s concerns about a controversial hydropower dam Laos is planning to build on the Mekong River. Cambodia and Vietnam both fear that the ...

Amid a lawsuit and a chorus of dissent, developers of the first lower Mekong mainstream hydropower project, the massive Xayaburi dam, have quietly submitted a long-anticipated, multimillion-dollar redesign plan, the Post has learned. What exactly has been changed about the 1,260-megawatt dam, which environmentalists contend will ...

In what could be the latest sign that authorities are pushing ahead with the Areng Valley hydropower dam, Vietnam Military Telecommunications Group has sent engineers into the valley in Koh Kong province to scout for locations where its local subsidiary, Metfone, could build mobile phone ...

A prominent rights group on Monday wrote to Minister of Interior Sar Kheng, calling on him to remind ministries and local authorities that demonstrators do not require their permission to hold public gatherings. ...

Laos has suspended the construction project of controversial 260-megawatt Don Sahong hydropower dam on the lower Mekong River following requests from other countries, newly-designated Laos ambassador to Cambodia Prasith Sayasith said Tuesday. ...

Phnom Penh security forces on Sunday blocked activists from riding their bicycles around the city to promote their campaign against the pending construction of a hydropower dam in Koh Kong province, claiming the organizers failed to ask City Hall for permission. The NGO Mother Nature has ...

The sixth Chinese-built hydropower plant, located in the Koh Kong province of   southwestern Cambodia, has begun producing electricity after more than four years of construction, the China National Heavy Machinery Corporation (CHMC) said in a  statement  on Thursday. CHMC started to develop the 246-megawatt Tatay River Hydropower Plant in 2010. The dam comprises three generators, each capable of producing 82 megawatts, the statement said. ...

US Secretary of State John Kerry said Saturday that hydropower development along the Mekong River could conflict with other benefits. “You have this tension between the purposes, unless they’re approached thoughtfully and correctly,” he told foreign ministers from the Lower Mekong Initiative gathered in Nay Pyi ...

A conservation group may release 20 baby Siamese crocodiles into the Areng Valley amid an ongoing stand-off between villagers and a Chinese firm over the construction of a controversial hydropower dam in Koh Kong province. Tuy Serey Vathana, country directory at Fauna and Flora International, said ...

Discussion about hydroelectric power plants in Cambodia tends to focus on two aspects, both negative. One is an overdependence on Chinese investment, and the other is a relatively disproportionate focus on the environmental impacts of hydroelectric power. Chinese Influence Most hydroelectric power plants in Cambodia are associated ...

In southwest Cambodia, at the foot of the Cardamom Mountains, is a single dirt road that meanders through the heart of the pristine Areng valley. Ten miles down this road, villagers have set up an encampment to stop a hydroelectric dam project that they fear ...

Officials involved in negotiating compensation offers between the developers of the Lower Sesan II dam and affected villagers have kept a portion of the money paid out to 12 families for themselves, according to an official. Duong Pov, Stung Treng provincial administration director, claimed that a ...

Villagers who will be displaced if the controversial Lower Sesan II dam is built called on the developers yesterday to postpone construction for five years, allowing time for a comprehensive resettlement scheme to be devised. But a government official dismissed their request as “beyond the pale”, ...

The Lao government has agreed to a lengthy public consultation process with its neighbors before building a controversial hydropower dam on the Mekong River, within 2 km of the Cambodian border, according to the environmental group WWF. Laos announced the 256-MW Don Sahong dam last year ...

The Lao government said yesterday that it would have the controversial Don Sahong dam undergo a formal process of prior consultation – a decision that will probably delay the project further. “The government has already demonstrated that it is committed to developing the Don Sahong project ...

About half the Koh Kong province villagers relocated to make way for a Union Development Group resort project have abandoned the new homes provided for them, citing poor conditions and an inconvenient location, a village representative said yesterday. More than 1,000 families living in the province’s ...