Dak Mi 4 Hydropower Plant continues to operate disregarding a call to shut down from the Department of Agriculture and Rural Development in the central province of Quang Nam.
According to Nguyen Thanh Quang, director of the Department, they had issued orders to hydropower plants along the Vu Gia-Thu Bon River to release water for rice cultivation in the lower reaches in the month of April.
The Department had asked the Dak Mi 4 Hydropower Plant to stop operations from April 12-May 14 to provide water for the summer-autumn rice crop and for residents in the lower reaches.
This requirement was discussed at a meeting with authorized organs by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development and the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
After examining the Dak Mi 4 Plant on April 26, the Department inspectorate found it was still operating. They thus again asked the plant to shut down operations and sent a document to the Vietnam Electricity and relevant organs asking for the plant to comply.
On May 5, the plant was still operating, regardless of the order.
According to reports from the Plant, they consumed 46.6 million cubic meters of water to generate electricity from April 12 to May 5 and the reservoir level is now 3.5m lower than normal.
The People’s Committee in Quang Nam Province on May 8 met with the Electricity Management Department under Ministry of Industry and Trade and the management board of Dak Mi 4 Hydropower Plant, from which the media was excluded.
Nguyen Minh Tuan, head of the Irrigation Department in Quang Nam Province, said that at the meeting, representatives from Dak Mi 4 Plant said they were forced to run the plant because of rainy weather. If they did not do that, the reservoir would have overflowed.
Authorized organs at the meeting did not refer to a halt in operations of Dak Mi 4. They just instructed its managers to build a plan to release sufficient water for farm production until May 15 and said that the plant would be held responsible for a water shortage.
At present, there has no systematic process for operating hydropower plants during dry season in the area and there is no organ having the right to decide water regulations at these plants.
