Will Don Sahong remove sediment from the river system? No sediment will be removed from the river system, although a small volume will be permanently deposited in the Sahong channel. Let us put the extent of this deposited sediment on sediment flux into perspective.

??? Firstly, 92% of the Mekong sediment load will naturally be transported down the existing channels other than Hou Sahong.

??? Of the 8% that enters the Hou Sahong, a small proportion will settle in the headpond during the first 2-4 years of operation (between 2% and 4% of the total per year, depending on natural flow variation).

??? When the trapped volume reaches approximately 8M tons, an equilibrium condition is reached after which the headpond will trap no further sediment.

??? From that time on, all sediment entering the headpond will pass through the turbines and continue downstream.

??? To put the total volume of trapped sediment into perspective, over the developer???s 25 year concession period, the percentage of sediment that can possibly be trapped in the Don Sahong headpond is only 0.26% of the total sediment load measured at Pakse, in the southern most Province in Lao.