Salween dam survey goes on

Salween dam survey goes on

The latest report by Salween Watch, a group formed in 1998 to gather and disseminate information about the dam projects on the Salween, says survey and road-building at the Tasarng dam site in Shan State is still proceeding, despite approaching monsoons. 

The account that covers the period between 13 March-19 May claims the digging of 4 tunnels, two on each side of the river at Tang Palao dam site, and drillings of perpendicular holes that reach the water level, had already ceased a month after MDX-Thai Sawad joint team arrived there on 21 January. 

"The villagers said they were not involved in the tunneling chores and thus escaped sudden deaths that occurred when the tunnels caved in," reads one part of the draft report in Shan, rejecting earlier S.H.A.N. report: (Residents advised to move, 14 February). Citing poor wages, 500 kyat per day, they managed to avoid the job that involved such hazards. The company then hired workers from lowland Burma, 30 of whom perished due to the cave-ins and other causes. "We only knew how many died when the religious rites were held for them afterwards," one villager told the reporter. 

The locals however were not allowed to go scot-free, continues the report. Villagers from Palao and Sala were required to carry supplies, cut wood and construct shelters for the army units assigned with security duty for the Thai team. Infantry Battalion #225 was stationed at Palao and Infantry Battalion #99 at Sala further south at the time. Some 30 Thais were quartered east of the village. (An insider source reported earlier that construction of 9 huts roofed with zinc sheets had been completed on 5 March). 

Four of them were seen each morning and evening in Palao, where bamboo stakes, two cubits long, stood along the water-line, each within eyesight of the other, stretching 3 miles upstream. There were also three stakes that went up the steep bank, each about 6 ft high and 6 ft distant from the other. 

The rest of the Thais and remaining Burmese workers, using 2 tractors and 3 bulldozers, were engaged on the construction of a gravel road, 25 ft wide, from the Tasarng Bridge in the south to the dam site, about 15 km long, according to a Thai Sawad executive. "Some two kilometers south of Palao, their work was impeded by a 50-meter high rock cliff that needed to be blasted," says the report. "That would take time, but the rest would be kid-stuff." 

An old road used by Thai Sawad while it was still logging the area ten years ago still stands, but lying west of the new road at a low elevation, it would be unusable during the monsoons when the water level was high. 

The reporter rejects previous reports about a new road being in construction that would skirt along the eastern bank south of Tasarng Bridge and make a wide detour of the township's seat, Mongton, before entering Thailand. (Dam cover-up for strategic road, S.H.A.N., 23 April 2003)

"I saw no loggable trees anymore," says the reporter. "The area east of the Salween from Tasarng up to Tapaw (north of Palao) was denuded of timber. The only forested area I could find was between Tapaw and the Hsim confluence further north." 

Kawpa, a village one mile southwest of Palao on the opposite bank and abandoned during the Kuomintang incursion more than 40 years earlier, still had its huge Sitting Buddha, 7 meters tall if the 3 meter high throne was added, on the reporter's last visit. "It was no longer there," he says. "Instead, the whole place had been leveled out to make way for two helicopter pads." 

A Thai dam activist, after listening to the draft report, wondered whether the Bangkok-based MDX knew that another dam project on the Salween down south, that is being planned by the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, on conclusion, would create a back flood that would reach as far as Tasarng, just short of the Hsim confluence but well above the projected dam site in Shan State. 

"It will be interesting to see how it will react to the news," he said. 

A new report in Thai on the dam projects on the Salween: Sokanatakam Song Phaendin (Tragedy on two lands) is being launched tomorrow (2 June) by Southeast Asia Rivers Network.

Further details 

• Infantry Battalion #294 Mongpan, stationed at Nakiang Village is responsible for security on the west bank. 

• The earth that was dug out from the tunnels were thrown into the river, but that was drilled out of the perpendicular holes were put into a container. 

• The Burmese workers were hired on to make water conduits to be used on the road. 

• The MDX also plans to build bridges over two gullies: Hwe Tanghseng and Hwe Sarng. 

• The height of the planned dam in Weigyi is 220 meters (721 ft) above sea level, while it is 650 ft at the Tasarng dam site and 750 ft at the mouth of the Hsim tributary.