BANGKOK — Laos formally began building a controversial hydroelectric dam on the Mekong River on Wednesday, despite comments from the country’s prime minister that the project had been delayed.“We held the groundbreaking ceremony today,” said Rewat Suwanakitti, the deputy managing director of Xayaburi Power, the company leading the project. “The Lao authorities told us that we could begin construction.”
The dam is the first of several planned for the river, and is being built despite concerns that the dam will irreparably harm fish stocks, which are an important food source for millions of people in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. The governments of Vietnam and Cambodia which are downstream from the site of the dam are wanting them to wait and keep looking into the impacts are going to have on the environment. The prime minister of Laos cares more about making money then the amount of environmental harm that it will have on the surrounding areas and for the people living in the surrounding area of the dams location.
This is awful. People can be so selfish. Not only are they harming countries downstream but will eventually harm themselves.
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