KUCHING: Former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad has suggested that Sarawak rethink its highly controversial policy of building mega dams to harness electricity by replacing them with a series of smaller dams like in Europe.

Dr Mahathir, who was in Kuching attending the International Energy Week conference yesterday, expressed his concern over the adverse impact mega dams could have on the environment and the people.

He said new dam building technology that minimises damage to the environment and reduces the social impact is already available and the state government could learn from European countries currently applying such technology.

Sarawak plans to build a total of 12 mega dams in Belaga, Baram, Baleh, Pelagus, Limbang and Lawas — all in the northern part of the state — to harness not only power for its growing industries but also as a source of income from sale of power to neighbouring states such as Brunei, Kalimantan (Indonesia) and Sabah.

The first one, located at Murum about 200km from Bintulu, was completed last year and will be commissioned soon.

The 944mw dam has a reservoir covering 2,750 sq km and could be filled with over 12 million cu m of water.

It has displaced thousands of ethnic Penans, Kayans and Kenyahs in the surrounding areas.

Dr Mahathir said one good example the state can learn from is Austria, with its 10 cascading dams on the Danube river, although he admitted that the cost may be high.

“Perhaps in future when you are a little bit richer, then building [the dam] will not be so costly,” he told reporters at the Borneo Convention Centre Kuching.

A Sarawak non-governmental organisation spearheading the campaign to stop the building of the dam in Baram wrote a letter last week to the former prime minister asking him to speak for them in promoting “small-scale energy solutions and for rural electrification” in Sarawak.

Dr Mahathir acknowledged receiving the letter from Save Rivers and noted the NGO’s request, saying he was speaking for them yesterday.

“I am also concerned,” he said.

The letter, signed by Save Rivers chairman Peter Kallang, brought Dr Mahathir’s attention to the findings of a recent study by the University of Oxford on the economic impacts of 245 large dams built in 65 countries between 1934 and 2007. The university found, “even before accounting”, the negative impact large dams have on human society and the environment.

Sarawak’s Second Minister for Resource Planning and Environment Datuk Awang Tengah Ali Hassan, when asked later, said the state is already looking at the type of dam suggested by Dr Mahathir.

Awang Tengah, who declared the conference open, said it is not for the Baram dam, which they plan to build next, but a smaller dam on the Trusan River in Lawas.

Kallang, who was also in Kuching for a conference, said he is very thankful to Dr Mahathir “for speaking his heart out”.

He said the NGO’s push for smaller dams that would minimise the environmental and social damage now has a “powerful voice”. — The Malaysian Insider

This article first appeared in The Edge Financial Daily, on January 28, 2015.