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Electricity of Vietnam Liable for Downstream Damages, Consultants Warn

A leaked Asian Development Bank report (Vol 1, Vol 2) warns Vietnam that major operational changes are needed to ensure public safety downstream of the country’s second largest hydro dam.

The report by Worley International (New Zealand-based consulting firm), confirmed that the filling of the Yali dam reservoir and the commissioning of its turbines had “inflicted unacceptable levels of impact on downstream societies and habitats,” and that its operating regime was “dangerous in the short term.”

“Operations of the [Yali] spillway gates have, over the last 15 months, transformed the natural river flow pattern to an unpredictable and dangerous series of discharges,” reported Worley in April 2000.

Large spills from Vietnam’s Yali dam killed and injured dozens of people in 1999 and 2000, and swept away property, livestock, and crops in dozens of communities downstream in Vietnam and Cambodia.

The dam owner, Electricity of Vietnam, has compensated none of the victims.

Worley also found that the Yali spillway is too small to safely pass a large flood and had already been damaged, presumably by large spills in 1999.*

As for environmental impacts, Yali is “gradually damaging the downstream production systems and ecology and causing considerable difficulty for people living close to the river,” wrote Worley, damages for which “EVN and the Yali Hydropower Project Management Board will be considered liable.”

The US$1.2 billion Yali dam is the first in a series of large hydro dams planned for the Se San River with funding from the Asian Development Bank.

The Se San is a large Mekong tributary flowing from Vietnam’s central highlands through northeast Cambodia, the lifeblood for farming and fishing communities along its banks.

The Worley report criticizes EVN for its “managemental recklessness” and makes detailed recommendations “to ensure that [Yali] is operated safely and responsibly, meeting international standards.”

Electricity of Vietnam was advised to immediately:

• change the dam’s operating regime to mirror the river’s natural flows until an optimal operating regime is developed by Vietnam and Cambodia.
• assess short term damages caused by spills from January 1999 “to the time they are brought ‘under control’ to the satisfaction of representatives of downstream residents in Vietnam and Cambodia.”
• compensate “all persons who have suffered losses, injury, dislocation of activities, reduction of food production, inconvenience etc.;” and
• setup a discharge warning system “to prevent further tragedies.”

Worley’s recommendations formed part of the Asian Development Bank’s appraisal of Se San 3, a second dam now under construction 20 kilometres downstream of Yali.

The US$264 million Se San 3 project was to be the Bank’s first and model hydro investment in Vietnam. But following Worley’s report, the Vietnamese government reportedly told the Bank that it no longer needed ADB assistance to proceed with the project. EVN secured Russian funding instead and began construction last year.

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*Note: Without adequate spillway capacity, water cannot be released from the Yali reservoir fast enough, thus increasing the risk of dam failure and damaging floods upstream.

Data illustrating the ongoing rapid fluctuations in river flow 110 kilometres downstream of the Yali dam as of January 2003, is posted on the Australian Mekong Resource Centre/University of Sydney’s Web site at www.mekong.es.usyd.edu.au (under Case Studies/Se San).

For more information, CONTACT:
Gráinne Ryder, Policy Director, Probe International

To view the PDF version of the Worley report please see Vol 1, Vol 2.