The Xayaburi dam will spend 100 million dollars to revamp its much-criticized project to mitigate its possible impact on the Mekong River, dpa cited a media report as saying Thursday. But a green group specializing in river ecology disputes claims that the redesign can achieve its intended environmental benefits. "We have redesigned the dam and we expect an increase to the investment cost," Xayaburi Power Company Limited deputy managing director Rewat Suwanakiti told the Vientiane Times. The 3.5-billion-dollar project is expected to spend the extra funds on a revamp to aid fish migration and sediment flows in the Mekong in line with recommendations from consultancies Poyry of Finland and the French Compagnie Nationale du Rhone, the state-run daily said, citing unnamed sources. The project's investors Tuesday for the first time invited technicians from the Mekong River Commission, donors including the Asian Development Bank and World Bank, and staff from the embassies of Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam to visit the proposed dam site in Xayaburi, northern Laos. On December 8, members of the commission's council, made up of water and environmental ministers from Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam, called for the project to be delayed to allow further environmental research. US-based International Rivers, a non-profit environmental group, expressed doubts over consultants' claims that they could redesign the dam to ensure it had no impact on the river. "They cannot possibly know how to mitigate the impacts until they have enough adequate baseline information and understand the river's ecosystem," said Ame Trandem, a spokeswoman for International Rivers' South-East Asian office in Bangkok. The dam's planned use of fish-ladder technology has never been tested on a river in South-East Asia, Trandem said. "What's important to remember is that the Mekong is the world's largest inland fishery, and because there is such a large quantity and diversity of species moving up and down the river it would be extremely difficult and costly to invent a fish passage that would work," she said. Poyry, in its report on the dam, acknowledged as much. "It is necessary to develop additional baseline data on biology, ecology and livelihood restoration ... and there is a need to improve the knowledge concerning the specific requirements of the aquatic fauna on the fish-passage facilities," the consultant said its in report. Laos, one of the world's poorest economies, is known to be keen to go ahead with the project despite persistent objections. The Lao government expects to receive about 3.9 billion dollars in revenue from the project over the 29-year concession period. The state holds 20 per cent stake in the project. The main building contractor, Thailand's Ch Karnchang Public Co Ltd, holds 30 per cent; and four other Thai companies hold the remainder.
