| Stung Treng Dam | |
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| Country | Cambodia |
| Location | Stung Treng Province |
| Coordinates | |
| Status | Proposed |
| Opening date | 2016 (estimated) |
| Dam and spillways | |
| Type of dam | Earth core rockfill gravity dam |
| Height | 22 m (72 ft) |
| Length | 10,844 m (35,577 ft) |
| Impounds | Mekong River |
| Spillway capacity | 73,500 m3/s (2,600,000 cu ft/s) |
| Reservoir | |
| Capacity | 70,000,000 m3 (57,000 acre·ft) |
| Surface area | 211 km2 (81 sq mi) |
| Power station | |
| Hydraulic head | 15.2 m (50 ft) |
| Turbines | 10 x 98 MW |
| Maximum capacity | 980 MW |
| As of 6 February 2011 | |
The Stung Treng Dam is a proposed hydroelectric dam on the Mekong River in Stung Treng Province, Cambodia. It is located on the mainstream of the Lower Mekong River, which has not been developed. The project is controversial for several reasons, not least on their possible impact on the fisheries, as well as other ecological and environmental factors.
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In 2007, the Russian company Bureyagesstroy got a license to conduct a feasibility study on a dam.[1] The feasibility study was carried out and the company asked permission to build the hydroelectric power station.[2] However, on December 9, 2009, a memorandum of understanding was signed between the Cambodian Government and the Vietnam Industrial and Urban Area Investment Development Corp (IDICO) to conduct a new feasibility study on the dam.[3] The results of this survey have not yet been released.
The Stung Treng Dam would be an earth core rockfill gravity dam. If completed, the dam's crest will be 10,844 metres (35,577 ft) long and 22 metres (72 ft) high. Its rated head is 15.2 metres (50 ft). It will have an installed capacity of 980 MW, and will, on average, generate 4,870 GWh per year. The dam's reservoir, which will extend well beyond the mainstream canal, will have an active storage of 70,000,000 cubic metres (57,000 acre·ft), and will inundate an area of 211 square kilometres (81 sq mi). The reservoir would be 50 kilometres (31 mi) long.[4]
Multiple independent agencies, including International Rivers, the Save the Mekong campaign and other have all raised concerns about the dam's construction.[5] In addition, Cambodia is a member of the Mekong River Commission, which requires prior notification of hydropower construction on the river's mainstream – i.e. plans for the Stung Treng will be subject to scrutiny by Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. A report authorized by the Mekong River Commission and released in January 2010 recommended that the Stung Treng along with the Sambor Dam be delayed for 10 years.[6]
The dam site lies within the Stung Treng Ramsar Site[7], which effectively obliges the Royal Cambodian Government to ‘actively support' the three 'pillars' of the Ramsar Convention:
It is expected that fish migration routes (which support the Tonle Sap fisheries, the world's largest inland fishery) will be more or less wholly impeded.[8] The two proposed dams of the Sambor and the Stung Treng would have the Mekong river basin's highest sediment trapping efficiencies of all the Lower Mekong Basin's proposed mainstream projects, destabilising downstream channels and between Kratie and Phnom Penh and cutting overbank siltation in the Cambodian floodplain.[8]
If built, an estimated 21 villages with 2,059 households and 10,617 people will be displaced with the construction of the dam.[4]