Harnessing the Mekong

...A more diversified agriculture could be developed, such as the cultivation of maize, cotton, tobacco, soybeans and peanuts, in an area that has depended far too long on a single crop—rice...

...Preliminary plans included the construction of a dam above Vientiane, the capital of Laos, construction of a second dam to harness the Khone falls and Mekong rapids in Cambodia, and building of storage areas at several points for irrigation...

...Development of navigation on the international waterway would give landlocked Laos an access to the sea and would transform the commerce of all four countries...

...In Bangkok, the group is called the Committee for Coordination of Investigations of the Lower Mekong Basin...

...From there, it flows south to China...

...Experts estimated that the creation of storage areas would make it possible to irrigate 23 million acres—considerably more than the total area now under cultivation...

...The river, General Wheeler stated, has "great potentialities for service to Southeast Asia in the fields of navigation, the development of hydroelectric power and related water uses...

...But the first step in turning the dream into a reality was not taken until 1956, when a team dispatched by the United Nations Economic Commission for Asia and the Far East (ECAFE) carried out a technical study of the river...

...Almost nothing is known of the river, and it has never been subjected to detailed scientific measurement and study...

...A SMALL GROUP of men in New York, and another small group in Bangkok, are planning a revolution that will affect the lives of 17 million people in Southeast Asia...

...The team reported that development of the river was not only feasible, but of critical importance to the growth of sound national economies of the four nations...

...River-level recording gauges will be installed, and nationals of the four countries will be trained in the collection of data and the use of the instruments, so that they can carry on the work when the contract expires...

...The latter country, as its contribution to the project, has carried out an aerial reconaissance of the Mekong's major tributaries...

...The Mekong has a drainage area of 795,000 square kilometers, three-fourths of which—an area the size of Afghanistan—is in the Lower Basin...

...Electric power and navigation together would provide a now nonexistent base for the development of industry, and the establishment of viable economies for the countries...

...spiring wonder of nature...

...Raymond A. Wheeler, a retired American army officer who had been in charge of clearing the Suez Canal after the 1956 conflict there...

...The contract will run for three years...

...Development of hydroelectric plants would provide an estimated four million kilowatts of energy per year, in an area that is critically short of such power resources as oil and coal...

...This would be only one phase of the economic revolution that would be wrought by the development of the Mekong...

...As C. V. Narasimhan, Executive Secretary of ECAFE, recently put it: "I do not think it would be an exaggeration to say that if things go forward in the Mekong project as smoothly as they have gone until now...

...A whole galaxy of UN agencies is providing help, including the Technical Assistance Board...

...The entire project is unique in many respects...

...The Mekong river does not now even have a single bridge across it...

...Throughout these countries—and in fact throughout Southeast Asia—the project is generating excitement and anticipation...

...The firm will set up a central office in Bangkok and will have engineers and field offices dispersed throughout the four countries...

...The Mekong River, almost unknown to Westerners, is an awe-inRALPH LEE SMITH, a free-lancer, has written for the Reporter, the Atlantic Monthly and the Reader's Digest...

...New Zealand, France, Britain, India and Japan...

...The UN dispatched a team of international experts, headed by Lt...

...Offers of assistance have also been made by the UN and its agencies, and by Canada...

...It tumbles southeastward to Chiambo in Tibet, paralleling the ancient caravan route from China to Lhasa...

...Together they are laying plans for harnessing the great Mekong River, 4.000-mile-long giant that is the longest undeveloped river in the world...

...The control of its floods and improvement of drainage can be accomplished with reasonable works, and in most instances in connection with its development for the useful purposes of navigation, irrigation and power...

...When General Wheeler and his team made their report, the Committee met again, and decided on a three-year program of studies to develop the information necessary to launch the actual construction of dams, irrigation works, hydroelectric plants, locks and canals...

...Australia...

...Flood control would prevent the annual inundation of millions of acres of otherwise usable land, and would preserve the wasted water potential...

...The rate of flow, the annual rainfall pattern and volume, characteristics of the surrounding terrain—all are unknown...

...ECAFE, the International Bank, the UN Special Fund, the World Meteorological Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization, and the International Labor Organization...

...C. Hart Schaaf, as its Executive Agent...

...The Bangkok Committee consists of representatives of the four nations in the Mekong River Delta—Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Thailand...

...Seventeen million people, most of them rice-cultivators, live in the lower Mekong Basin...

...This study will cost perhaps $10 million...

...From the very beginning, all planning is cooperative and international, so that no nation will develop the river to the detriment of its neighbors, and all available resources will be invested according to a master plan...

...In Thailand, it continues as a mountain torrent until it reaches Cambodia, where it enters lovely, lowland jungle country and begins its long journey through some of the world's most fertile riceland to the China Sea...

...In 1957, the four countries set up the Committee for Coordination of Investigations of the Lower Mekong Basin...

...During the June-October monsoon, the farmer watches the river anxiously—and sometimes his worst fears come to pass...

...Less than three per cent of the area now under cultivation is irrigated...

...Indiana, and taught administration at Cornell...

...The men in New York are members of the United Nations Technical Board and several other UN agencies...

...All assistance from the UN and from individual countries is being channeled through the Committee in Bangkok...

...General Wheeler and his team completed their survey early in 1958, and issued a strongly favorable report on the feasibility of developing the river and its ultimate potential...

...As the magnitude of the Mekong project has grown, the Committee in Bangkok has been overwhelmed with work, and in March of this year the group appointed an American...

...In times of flood or drought, starvation has swept through the land...

...For the past 10 years, he has held administrative posts with UN agencies in the middle east and southeast Asia...

...In November 1957, the Committee asked the UN to undertake more detailed technical surveys to develop specific plans for conquering the river...

...For years, the countries through which it flows have dreamed of harnessing the river...

...The United States offered $2.2 million immediately, and a contract has been let to an American engineering firm to measure the level and rate of flow of the river at many points along its length...

...Wise conservation and utilization of its waters will contribute more toward improving human welfare in the area than any other single undertaking...

...Smaller development programs on the tributaries would bring almost immediate benefits at relatively low cost, while providing the experience that will be needed as the project passes from limited development to full use of the river...

...The river, which is for them a life-giving stream, is also an uncontrollable and treacherous foe...

...In the meanwhile, the continuing studies have indicated several preliminary improvements and projects that can be undertaken at relatively small cost and that would provide substantial immediate results...

...The UN and a number of individual nations have unhesitatingly provided the funds to launch the study, and all are participating in the atmosphere of excitement and expectation...

...Almost nothing has been done to harness the great river, and therefore the planners are starting from scratch...

...For example, marking of the river channel and improvement of the channel at just a few spots would immediately turn the river into a navigable international highway along many of its reaches that are now inaccessible to ocean vessels...

...a real economic revolution will have begun in this part of Southeast Asia...

...Many tributaries flow into the Mekong in its lower reaches, and its alluvial plains are a great source of natural wealth for the four riparian countries...

...Schaaf is from Fort Wayne...

...It forms the entire border between Burma and Laos and one-half of the border between Laos and Thailand...

...In a few years, its face—and the face of the surrounding countries—will be transformed...

...It rises in the highlands of East Tibet, on the slopes of Dza Nag Long Mung, 16,000 feet above sea level...