The fate of hydropower plant project in national park unclear Contradictory information about Ea K’tuor project has come out. While Dak Lak province affirmed it would ask to stop the project, which is located in Chu Yang Sin National Park, the Ministry of Industry and Trade affirmed that the project implementation will continue.   At the August regular press conference held by the Ministry of Industry and Trade on September 3, Nguyen Khac Tho, Deputy General Director of the Energy Directorate, said the ministry will join forces with the Dak Lak provincial people’s committee to carry out the Ea K’tuor project as initially planned. According to Tho, Ea K’tuor project is a part of the program on developing small and medium hydropower plant projects approved by the provincial authorities. At first, the investor planned to build a 9.3 MW plant, which would take 64 hectares of the Chu Yang Sin national park. However, the Dak Lak authorities did not allow carrying out the project, saying that the project takes a too large area of the national park. Therefore, the ministry asked the authorities to instruct the investors to adjust the design of the project and reduce the land area to be taken for the hydropower plants. The Ministry of Industry and Trade reported this to the Prime Minister, who then decided to assign the Dak Lak provincial authorities to reconsider the project. As per the instruction by the Prime Minister, the investor is planning to reduce the scale of the project to 5 MW, which means that the hydropower plant would take 6 hectares of the national park only. “With the adjusted project, the Ministry of Industry and Trade will join forces with the provincial authorities to supervise the project implementation to be sure that the project will not cause environmental problems,” he said. Meanwhile, on the same day, Deputy Chair of Dak Lak provincial People’s Committee Tran Hieu said the provincial authorities had just sent a dispatch to the government office, the Ministry of Industry and Trade, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, informing that the authorities don’t agree to allow Hoang Nguyen Company Ltd Hieu said relevant departments have pointed out that the hydropower plant will damage the biodiversity of the Chu Yang Sin National Park and the national historical revolution relics – the Dak Tuor stone cave. The Chu Yang Sin and the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development have expressed their disagreement to the development of the project, reasoning that the project would badly affect the wild life and pollute the environment. The involved parties keep arguing violently about the project. Hoang Dinh Tuan, Director of Hoang Nguyen Company Ltd, the investor of the hydropower plant project, affirmed that the company has got the nods from all the competent agencies on the project, and the company will start the construction after it submits the reports on the environment impacts and fulfill necessary procedures. Meanwhile, Tran The Lien, a senior official of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, affirmed that it is not true. The Ea K’tuor project is located in the national park set up by the Prime Minister. This means that the hydropower project can only be implemented once the investor gets the approval from the Prime Minister,” he said in an interview given to Nguoi lao dong in late August. Thien Nhien, VietNamNet Bridge