AP, BANGKOKThe Mekong River has acquired an aquamarine color that may beguile tourists, but also indicates a problem caused by upstream dams, experts in Thailand say. The water levels have also become unusually low, exposing sandbanks that would allow those willing to stand in the middle of the river. Around 70 million people depend on the Mekong River for water, food, commerce, irrigation and transportation. Critics charge that large-scale development projects such as the Xayaburi dam dangerously disrupt the region’s ecology. The dam’s developers have denied that they were responsible for low water levels that some critics tied to trial runs of the generators that began in March.
