Agriculture and the daily activities of locals in the central region in Vietnam have been downgraded since the An Khe – Ka Nak hydroelectricity power plant on Ba River went into operation in 2010.

Vast areas of Quang Nam, Gia Lai, and Phu Yen provinces as well as Da Nang City have been left in drought in dry season and flooded in rainy season. The river bed after the reservoir of the plant has been dried up, causing disorder to the ecosystem and the environment of the region.

Thanks to the exhaust of water behind the An Khe reservoir in the lower reaches of Ba River, the river bed has become a working place for locals to sift for gold, causing the contamination to become more severe.

Ba River is dying

Vast areas along the river have relied on the water source for generations for cultivation and other agricultural products, but it has changed due to the An Khe – Ka Nak plant.

“Pumping stations were left unworkable due to the shortage of water on Ba River,” said Tran Minh Phuong – an irrigation official of Ia Pa District in Gia Lai. He said the pumps had to lower the sucking pipe 50cm but were left useless sometimes.

The An Khe – Ka Nak power plant has two reservoirs: Ka Nak in the upper reaches with a capacity of 13MW and An Khe in the lower reaches with 160MW. Both reservoirs are 30km away on the Ba River.

A delegation of the National Assembly of Gia Lai Province conducted a survey in 2011 and concluded that, “An Khe – Ka Nak has become an obsession of people living in the lower reaches of the river in the flood season and a permanent worry in the dry season due to a desperate shortage of water.”

Early last year, the delegation lodged a letter of complaint to the Prime Minister but it has remained a problem for locals in agricultural production and daily life.

Even worse, the management board of the hydroelectricity power plant redirected water from the Ba River to Kon River for another hydroelectricity power plant in Binh Dinh Province.

Unfair

Previously, the management board of the An Khe – Ka Nak hydroelectricity power plant agreed to release four cubic meters of water per second to the lower reaches for life and production, but authorities of Gia Lai accused it of releasing much less than the regulated level.

However, officials of the law-making body of Gia Lai admitted that the level of four cubic meters of water a second also fails to maintain the environment for the Ba River and added that it should be at least 20 cubic meters per second in the dry season.

The average level of water of Ba River from 2005-09, when the power plant was not built, was 19.8 cubic meters a second in the six months of the dry season, and 42.5 cubic meters a second all-year round, according to the law-making body.

In addition, Le Van Truc -- deputy permanent chairman of the People’s Committee of Phu Yen Province – also protested the redirection of water from Ba River to Kon River.

A survey by authorities of Phu Yen in 2012 showed that the water sources and the environment of the Ba River behind the An Khe – Ka Nak plant was contaminated and degraded.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade replied to the problem that the plant was approved by the government in 2005 and so any change now is impractical and the release of four cubic meters of water a second is acceptable.

Not only An Khe – Ka Nak, Da Nang has also been badly affected by another hydroelectricity power plant Dak Mi 4, which caused similar troubles to locals.