This message, by Alan Potkin, appeared on one of the Lao email lists. It is a useful critical follow-up to my earlier post on the Mekong and an associated press report in Al-Jazeera.
In an Al-Jazeera article published on 8 March 2010, Dr. Andrew Walker, an anthropologist at the Australian National University, who also personally publishes the New Mandala blog, was quoted as believing that “the Chinese dams have little impact on the current low flow levels of the Mekong”.
I wouldn’t have necessarily disagreed at first, but I have since come to realize that the new Xiaowan dam, the fourth (of the eventual eight existing and proposed) comprising the Lançang-Jiang cascade has been almost certainly filling its reservoir for the first time. (The Lançang-Jiang is what the Chinese call the upper Mekong inside Yunnan.)
Quick and dirty online research indicates that such filling has apparently been underway since no earlier than the 2008 rainy season, when the Xiaowan dam itself was finished, and possibly didn’t really begin until a year later. Bringing that reservoir to Full Pool Elevation is “expected to take ten years”, according to the Chinese. Unlike the other three already completed projects in Yunnan, which can be more plausibly described as “run-of-river” (e.g., by comparison, the capacity of the Manwan reservoir is only about 0.9 km3), Xiaowan has a designed reservoir volume of about 15 km3 (cubic kilometers), of which nearly 14 km3 would be dead storage, so until that level is reached, presumably, no hydropower can be generated and wheeled to wherever it’s going.
While my tendency would have been to pooh-pooh the recent China-bashing, especially by the Thais, but from investigating the Xiaowan project considerably further these past few days, and seeing how the Chinese are extremely sensitive about acknowledging even the possibility of the Lançang cascade exacerbating record downstream drought low flows (no question that the present drought is for real, but that’s another issue), I’m beginning to see the matter quite differently.
In principle, of course, once the Lançang Jiang cascade has been completed and the reservoir staircase fully filled, there should be at least the possibility of dry season flow augmentation and wet season flood amelioration. But that speaks not at all to the present situation with Xiaowan, which is the most upstream of the four dams now completed.
Interestingly, the (undated?) image of the Xiaowan project area now up on Google Earth evidently predates any significant construction there, much less showing the status of the impoundment which is supposed to encompass a surface area on the order of 180 km2. Check it out yourself: approx. coordinates for the dam site are 24º 41′ 08″ N., 100º 05′ 59″ E.
(Much newer high-resolution satellite imagery is available from sources such as Geo Eye, which yesterday quoted me a price of US$12/km2, with a 50 km2 minimum. The entire Xiaowan project area is probably something like 350 km2, from the head of the reservoir footprint to the toe of the bank stabilization works extending maybe 10 km below the dam, spillways, and turbinated outfalls. So I won’t be posting the Geo Eye pix into the LaoFAB repository just yet.)
Given the enormous volume required to fill Xiaowan, the most critical gaging stations to evaluate a deleterious Chinese contribution to extreme low flows now evident as far downstream, certainly, as Luang Prabang, would be those two just above the Xiaowan pool (ca. 190 km in length, when totally full!), and just below the 292 meter high Xiaowan dam. The difference in discharge data between these two sites would indicate exactly how much of the Lançang Jiang is being retained now to fill Xiaowan.
The Chinese agreement to provide streamflow data from Manowan (which is just downstream of Xiaowan); and from Jinghong (in Sipsong Banna), which also has relatively minor storage volume, is welcome and is a positive step. But it isn’t rocket science to realize that those latter two gaging stations alone provide essentially zero information as to how much water is presently being retained much further upstream to fill the new Xiaowan reservoir. Why is the MRC being so coy over this?
The Xiaowan project operator, a private sector PRC company, is likely bound by a very onerous late-delivery penalty clause in their Power Purchase Agreement (PPA). If I have it right, the non-delivery or substantive delay penalty clause for Nam Thuen 2 in their PPA with EGAT was something like US $1M/day, which may partly explain why NTEC has just started wheeling power to Thailand on an “experimental” or “non-commercial” basis, to finesse nominally binding requirements from NT2′s multilateral development bank funders and guarantors to have certain mitigation projects absolutely in place before full commercial operation. (At about 1,050 MW, NT2 has only a fraction of the eventual installed capacity of Xiaowan, which will be 4,200 MW when all six turbines there are operational. So the PPA penalty for delaying Xiaowan may well be four times that for NT2.)
Thanks for all due consideration.
Regards,
Alan Potkin, Ph. D.
Adjunct Consultant
Center for Southeast Asian Studies
Northern Illinois University
9 responses so far ↓
1 banphai // Mar 29, 2010 at 3:06 pm
Three weeks ago I read in the Bangkok Post (http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/local/34013/china-will-heed-river-concerns) that experts doubted upstream dams were to blame for the falling water levels and had argued the dams were not holding on to water, because they must release it to generate electricity. The source of these ‘expert’ opinions was not provided, and they seemed to have been slavishly accepted as ‘revealed truth’ by the reporter .
After 30 minutes research and cross-checking of information with Google and with no prior knowledge of the China’s dam-building schemes on the Mekong, I was able to comment, “All hydro-dams must be filled after they are built. It took 3 yrs (1993-96) for China to fill the Manowan Dam, and dry season flows were reduced during these years as a consequence. The new Xiaowan Dam is massive by comparison and is estimated to take 10 years to fill by withholding 50% of flows. The dam is now nearing completion, and the filling process has already started.”
Why can’t reporters working with our national media do this?
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2 Suzie Wong // Mar 30, 2010 at 10:20 am
The underlying reason as to why the discussion becomes acrimonious is because the issue has been transformed from the water of the Mekong River to international security affairs. While some people attempt to scientifically probe the root cause of the drought, others are trying to manipulate the issue to create tension in order to disrupt the military cooperation between China and ASEAN countries. The difference in purpose has caused the contested argument.
The best solution for this situation is to probe the problem with scientific methods while reinforcing military cooperation for an extended deterrence to prevent a major war.
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3 Bh. V. // Mar 30, 2010 at 6:32 pm
We can use the very scientific Occam’s Razor principle here, Suzy Wong: two grabbing hands are enough to explain problem; no need to suppose a third.
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4 Noud // Mar 30, 2010 at 10:13 pm
Well, I guess Lao is paying back in natura for all those low interest loans, grants and gifts from the PRC
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5 David Blake // Mar 30, 2010 at 11:18 pm
What “military cooperation” would you be referring to then Suzy? Perhaps the excellent cooperation over sharing the oil spoils around the Spratly’s and Paracel Islands or is there some other cooperation going on between the Red Army in Beijing and the renegade, grenade-tossing Red militias in Bangkok you’d like to tell us about?
And what is the “major war” scenario you have in mind and how will scientifically “probing the problem” of unnatural water flows in the Mekong prevent it exactly? Your logic has stumped me.
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6 Noud // Apr 3, 2010 at 12:25 am
Here is some news from Xinhua, the chinese press agency:
‘ China denies dams have worsened drought in Mekong River basin ‘
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/china/2010-03/31/c_13231344.htm
‘The water level in the Xiaowan hydropower station, the only one with a reservoir, had fallen by 7.12 meters from the pre-dry-season level with the release of 560 million cubic meters of water to the lower reaches, he said.
This could only help adjust river water flows in border areas because the Chinese section accounted for only a small amount of water flow on the whole Mekong River, Zhang stated.’
So they argue that the low level of the Mekong in Lao is not caused by the filling of the Xiaowan reservoir, but because of the drought. The strange thing is that slow boat service on the Nam Ou, a Mekong tributary which springs at the Chinese border, is still possible (which can get difficult in the middle of the dry season) but boat travel on the Mekong is difficult now already. Very strange.
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7 Ian Baird // Apr 3, 2010 at 4:35 pm
My suspicion is that both the drought and the Xiaowan dam are contributing to historically low-water levels this year. However, I do not have access to any clear evidence. It would be good if some was made available to the public. Then we wouldn’t have to speculate on these matters.
Anyway, what is interesting is that there has recently been a lot of fanfare about the Chinese providing data to downstream countries in the MRC about the operations of two upriver dams. This is apparently the first time this has ever happened. However, the Chinese have made no mention of providing information about the Xiaowan dam, and strangely enough, the MRC doesn’t seem to be pressing China to provide information regarding that project. Instead, they appear to be content with patting themselves on the back for obtaining access to information that may be significant, but is more than likely not nearly as important as understanding what is going on with the Xiaowan dam.
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8 Long Pham // Apr 8, 2010 at 4:00 pm
MRC role is the guardian for the Mekong river but they dropped the guard so easily. MRC bought China’s denial of all responsibility for the drought.
MRC acts as cover for China from the Mekong countries.
It’s time to change direction or replace current MRC leadership. MRC should be proactive, should wait no more for China, go get the data and run hydrological model for the river themselves.
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9 john francis lee // Apr 8, 2010 at 7:58 pm
…the MRC doesn’t seem to be pressing China to provide information regarding that project.
You’re not kidding. They seem to be in league with the Chinese in suppressing real information about the Xiaowan dam.
Why don’t the downstream nations have permanent, resident observers at all the Chinese dams, MRC or no MRC?
They’re all more scared of and thus more solicitous of the comfort of the Chinese than they are of their own citizens. That’s why.
None of the governments involved really gives a damn about its citizens, at least not about the “class” of citizens dependent on the Lancang/Mekong, and that includes the Chinese government.
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