Lao Dams, Mining Ruining Sekong Water Quality in Cambodia

Dam-building and gold mining in southern Laos are ruining water quality downstream on the Sekong River in Cambodia, where villagers are no longer able to drink or use the water, according to an environmental group. The activities undertaken by Lao and Vietnamese companies on the Sekong’s tributaries are making the river water muddy and full of silt, said Meach Mean of the Cambodia-based 3S Rivers Protection Network, which monitors environmental issues in the Sekong, Sesan, and Srepok rivers in the Vietnam-Laos-Cambodia border area. Because of the sediment in the Sekong, villagers downstream in Cambodia’s Stung Treng province do not dare drink the water from the river and want the Lao government to address the problem, according to the group. “For Cambodians, the important thing is that countries should not cause problems for other countries, whether through building dams or through dredging for gold,” Meach Mean said. … Chemicals such as mercury are often used in the mining process to get gold out of rock, and residents in southern Laos have complained of toxic pollution from gold mining along the Sekong waters for years. … Earlier this month, two hundred environmentalists and riparian community representatives from Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, and southwestern China met in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh to discuss how dams on the Mekong and the 3S rivers built by Laos and other countries were affecting their local river environments and living standards. Tek Vannara, deputy director of the Cambodia NGO Forum that hosted the meeting, said regional governments including Laos “pay little attention” to local communities when making the decisions to build the dams. …

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/laos/sekong-06252013190742.html