VietNamNet Bridge – Water is the national property which has been shared among the people in the community. And when a party conducts the behaviors that cause the harm to the others’ benefit, the others can sue the party for the behavior.

The battles for water getting more violent 

Dr. Vu Ngoc Long, Head of the Southern Bionomics Institute, Director of the Center for Biodiversity and Development (CBD), affirmed that both the local authorities and local people can come forward and sue the hydropower plants’ board of management for violating the natural resource law.

Hydropower plants’ designers set up very large tunnels and pipes that go through the mountains, carrying water from the main stream of river to the plants’ turbines. In principle, the water needs to flow in the pipes at steep slope and powerful intensity to be able to create big power.

However, this would create the “dead rivers” because the river’s water has been transferred to other places.

Therefore, he said, the mainstream diversion of the Vu Gia and Thu Bon rivers to provide water to the Dak Mi 4 hydropower plant, like many other hydropower projects, has caused harm to the environment. It may kill the entire ecosystem of the river whose water has been stolen.

Dr. Le Anh Tuan from the Institute for Climate Change Studies, an arm of the Can Tho University said the water supply has been short, and hydropower plants try to hold the water to run turbines for electricity generation. As such, the plants have been trying to optimize their profits, while ignoring the benefits of people in the lower course.

In principle, state management agencies have to clearly stipulate the minimum water capacity hydropower plants have to discharge to the lower course. It is not the hydropower plants’ board of management which has the right to determine the water capacity.

However, Tuan said, there has been no legal provision on this issue. In fact, the regulations have mentioned the rights and responsibilities of management agencies in the field, but these are just vague regulations with no scientific basis.

“The water resources must be allocated on the basis of sharing benefits and risks among the involved parties. If necessary, hydropower plants have to use a part of their profits to compensate the harms they cause to the environment and people,” Tuan said.

Dr. Vu Ngoc Long affirmed that the Dak Mi 4 deliberately temporarily discharged water to Da Nang City and Quang Nam province. The board of management of the hydropower plant explained that it still could not discharge water because it was waiting for the water reservoirs’ operation procedure to be approved by the government.

However, in fact, the hydropower plant developer tried to delay the water discharge to optimize their profits.

“People don’t want to wait for getting water. They can sue the board of management of the hydropower plant,” Long said.

“It’s obvious that problems exist in the project’s report on the possible impacts on the environment. Local authorities can request the hydropower plant to give back the water and the other natural resources which have been lost due to the operation of the plant,” he added.

Lawyer Nguyen Van Hau, Deputy Chair of the HCM City Bar Association, has pointed out that according to the Water Natural Resource Ordinance, people have the right to use clean water, while household use and production are the priority subjects in using clean water.

Thien Nhien