The Yom river is the largest tributary of the Nan river, and meets it a long way downstream in the central floodplains.
For the last 20 years a debate has been raging about whether to dam this river. The government is proposing it to create electricity, irrigation waters, and to help with flood control.
However, not far east of here, a dam was built on the Nan river just as it exited Lam Nam Nan National Park. The Sirikit Dam innundated 100 square miles of the national park.
The site chosen is 65km north and upstream of here, just where the river emerges out of the Mae Yom National Park.
Protests from local villagers suggest that they are vehemently against it. They claim that the dam only serves personal interests of business people – to harvest valuable teak forrests that would be innundated, to make real estate deals around the new water front, and to win the lucrative construction and servicing contracts.
Its also a pretty river, so I hope nothing bad happens to it.
