In the central region and Central Highlands, forests account for more than 50 percent of the total area, while generating profuse resources, including the hydraulic power for making electricity.

On the three big rivers in the region, including Ba River, Sesan-Srepok and Vu Gia-Vu Bon in Quang Nam province, more and more hydropower plants have been set up, which have “strangled” the rivers.

Doan Tranh from Duy Tan University said that the water discharge of the A Vuong hydropower plant’s water reservoir in 2009 and the water discharge of the Ba Ha river hydropower plant in 2010--both caused severe damages to villages and buried a lot of fields in the lowland areas.

Many hydropower plants have caused drought and salinity to the rivers in summer. Also according to Tranh, the Vinh Dien River gets salty in the dry season; the thing that never occurred 20 years ago.

In Da Nang City, since the salinity frequency of the Cau Do River has been increasing, the city’s water supply company has to set up a water supply station on An Trach dam, about 10 kilometers far from the Cau Do water supply plant.

He emphasized that hydropower plants can only bring short term economic benefits, while they may cause long term consequences. On average, the life expectancy of a hydropower plant is 50-100 years, while the environmental consequences they create may last many more years.

Six years ago, Le Minh Anh, who was then the Chair of the Quang Nam provincial authorities, once stated that when hydropower plants become operational, Quang Nam would get rich and Quang Nam’s residents would be able to “sit and count their money.”
However, Quang Nam’s residents have been put on tenterhooks when they can see the negative impacts caused by hydropower plants. They cannot “sit and count money,” because they do not know what the hydropower plants would bring to them.

What exchanges for what?

The local residents have become even more anxious when hearing about the Song Tranh 2 dam crack incident. While relevant agencies have been trying to reassure the public, saying that the hydropower plant is safe to people. Dr Nguyen Bach Phuc, Chair of the HCM City scientific and technological advisory and management association has affirmed that there is no basis to conclude that Song Tranh 2 hydropower plant is safe. 
He said that the problem of Song Tranh needs to be fixed in a scientific way and in transparency. The Electricity of Vietnam, the investor of the project, and the Vietnam Union of Science and Technology Associations (VUSTA) have met in a private meeting, while no solution to fix the problem has been announced to date.

Scientists, for the sake of the 800,000 people in the lowland and the Hoi An ancient town, who could be affected by the hydropower plant, have supported the decision by the leaders of Quang Nam province to put forward the Song Tranh problem at the upcoming National Assembly’s session.

In fact, scientists once warned about the bad impacts of hydropower plants on the environment and people’s life many years ago. And now people can see with their eyes that the warned things have become true.

Source: Vietnamnet