VietNamNet Bridge – When they began to build a hydropower plant on Ba River, the investors promised that the plant would provide the lowlands with water and help ease floods. But they have backed away from their promises.

“We should not expect that hydropower plants can prevent floods for the lowlands. They can never do this. Floods will still come. We have to accept to live together with floods,” said Nguyen Tai Anh, deputy general director of the Electricity of Vietnam (EVN), the largest power group,  the investor of many power plants and the only electricity retailer in Vietnam.

The Prime Minister has approved the process to operate the hydropower reservoirs on Ba River, which says that hydropower plants must make public information about their water discharge four hours in advance instead of two hours as previously stipulated.

However, Dang Van Tuan, general director of the Song Ba Ha River Hydropower JSC, complained the process is difficult for the plant.

Meanwhile, EVN said that there is no solution to stop floods on Ba River and that people have no other choice than “living together with floods”.

Do Duc Quan, director of the Hydropower Department of the General Energy Directorate, admitted that the Ministry of Industry and Trade once thought of enlarging the reservoir of the Song Ba Ha hydropower plant to help stop floods. But the solution proved unfeasible.

“We found that in order to prevent 400 million cubic meters of water in the flood season from flowing to the lowland, we will lose 4,500 hectares of land, an area which is nearly double the Song Ba Ha’s reservoir,” Quan said.

“The land area to be lost is too large, while the volume of water of 400 million cubic meters is too modest, ” he added.

The EVN statement has made people angry. “They have swindled us,” said Tran Van Tien, a local resident in Phu Hoa district of Phu Yen province, the area which usually suffers from floods.

“Some years ago, when they began building the hydropower plant, they assured us of the effect of preventing floods. But they now say they cannot,” he said.

The feasibility study of the Song Ba hydropower plant clearly says that the project not only aims to generate electricity and provide electricity at low prices, but also bring many other benefits.

The investor said Song Ba plant would provide water to irrigate nearly 3,000 hectares of land around the reservoir.

It would also help improve the environment, and pave the way for the development of eco-tourism in the area, where there is the Krong Trai natural sanctuary. The plant would also bear the task of regulating the volume of water to be provided to the lowland area. However, the promises have not been fulfilled.

Meanwhile, the Power Regulatory Unit, an arm of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, is siding with the power plant’s investor. Nguyen Anh Tuan, head of the unit, said the new water discharge regulation would badly affect the operation of hydropower plants.

He said that while applying necessary measures to ease the floods for the lowlands, it is necessary to ensure benefits for the hydropower plants.

Dat Viet