More Lao land deals inked

Laos has contracted firms to build and operate another significant hydro-power plant on the Mekong River system, adding to the existing furor over potential effects on downstream countries such as Cambodia from the controversial Xayaburi dam. The contracts, reportedly worth $1 billion, are for a series of three dams making up the Xe-Namnoy plant on two tributaries of the Se Kong River, which flows into the Mekong from the Bolaven Plateau in southern Laos – just some 100 kilometers from Cambodia. Because of this close proximity, communities on the Cambodian-Lao border would feel particularly acute downstream affects; however, since no impact assessments of the project had been made public, this was hard to measure, conservation group International Rivers warned yesterday.  …

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012102559403/National-news/more-lao-dam-deals-inked.html