Mekong River Dams Disrupting Lives of Southeast Asian Fishermen, Farmers
Tiem Ngern-tok pointed at the water level, shook his head and talked about dragon boat races to explain how dams in China and Laos have disrupted the lives of Thai people whose villages abut the Mekong River.
“During annual boat races the water was high,” said Tiem, a government hydrologist at a water-measuring station in Ban Sob Kok, a village in Thailand’s northernmost Chiang Rai province.
A colleague interrupted him: “Three meters high.”
With water levels usually reaching about 10 feet in April, Tiem said this year’s numbers were “exceptionally low.”
“In previous years, the levels were a bit over 1-meter high, but that was during the driest time in April, not this soon,” he told BenarNews, an RFA-affiliated online news service. “In March and April, it will get worse.”
