Three Gorges
Dam Project by Mark
Wong
Location:
Sandouping, Yichang, Hubei
province
Height: 181 meters
Expected
investment: 203.9
billion renminbi (US$24.65 billion)
Number
of migrants: 1.13
million
Installed
power generation capacity: 18.2 million kilowatts
Functions:
Flood control, power
generation, improved navigation
Construction
timetable (source: China Daily Business Weekly):
Fund
sources (source: China Daily Business Weekly):
Resettlement: In the 1980s, China passed
regulations to protect the rights of those displaced by the dam projects and
assure them of adequate compensation. But human rights
activists asserted that rural dwellers are being discriminated, that they are
not being consulted about their eviction, that they are often crowded onto poor
land with unsatisfactory living conditions and few job opportunities, that they
are not being taught new job skills, that corruption is diverting the funds
meant to compensate them, that their local culture is threatened and that the
government has provided no channels for them to express dissatisfaction.
But supporters denied these
charges and pointed out how the lives and property of those 15 million people
living downstream would be improved from the reduction of devastating floods
and from the extra electricity supply, which is expected to stimulate the local
economy, provide more jobs and improve the standard of living.
Environment: Dam defenders point to the
environmental benefits given by the dam, such as the availability of
hydroelectric power, which is much cleaner than the coal burning China has
relied heavily for decades. They believe the dam will reduce greenhouse gas
emissions by reducing coal burning (thereby protecting the ozone layer) and
have none of the radiation hazards at nuclear plants.
Critics pointed out,
however, that new, cheaper alternatives such as gas-fueled combined cycle
plants and co-generators produce virtually no pollution or greenhouse gases.
They added that water pollution would increase as the power of the Yangtze,
which helps flush pollutants dumped by the factories on the riverbanks, is reduced and as more factories are relocated to the edge
of the reservoir. But dam defenders said they would
prevent pollution while critics alleged that officials had merely told ships to
stop dumping sewage.
Opponents also said
the dam would alter the current ecosystem and threaten the habitats of various
endangered species of fish, waterfowl and other animals. They added that the
project would necessitate extensive logging in the area and erode much of the
coastline. But dam defenders pointed to measures such
as fish ladders being taken to address these issues, which some critics
believed would be ineffective.
Local culture and
natural beauty: Opponents
said the 600-kilometer (370 mile) long reservoir would inundate some 1,300
archeological sites, destroy the legendary beauty of the Three Gorges and
thereby substantially reduce the tourism revenue. Dam defenders said, however,
that many cultural and historical relics are being moved
to higher ground and that the rise in the water level would not affect the scenery
as much as the critics claimed.
Construction is now
under way on the world's largest hydroelectric dam, at the Three Gorges at the
middle reaches of the Yangtze River. If all proceeds on schedule, in the year
2003, water will fill its huge reservoir at a level of 135 meters above sea
level to allow the first group of electrical generators to begin operation. The
entire project is to be completed in 2009. To make way
for this ambitious project, the Chinese government says 1.2 million people will be relocated. Critics of the dam, however, predict that
the total number of resettlers will actually be much
higher: between 1.6 million and 1.9 million.3
About half of these will be urban residents and the other half
are rural residents who will need either new farmland or urban jobs to
restart their lives.
One fundamental
problem in assessing the Three Gorges resettlement program is that the official
figures appear to be false, and the success stories fabricated. For example,
four Sichuan journalists who are assigned to report
full-time on the progress of resettlement told me that county officials in
Sichuan and Hubei claimed at a conference in January
that 200,000 people had already been resettled. If accurate, that number would
mean that resettlement was ahead of schedule. But the
journalists explained the 200,000 figure was an exaggeration by local officials
wishing to impress their superiors. One journalist said that he had traveled
extensively in the Three Gorges area, and that the actual figures were
generally no more than half the official ones. Even senior officials at the
Three Gorges Project Resettlement Bureau, he said, do not believe that 200,000
people have been resettled.
WASHINGTON, (Dec. 12)
IPS - While Chinese authorities continue pushing construction of the Three
Gorges Dam -- the largest hydro- electric project in history -- public
criticism over its human, environmental impacts is heating up within the Middle
Kingdom.
Engineers working on
the Three Gorges project recently diverted a side channel on the Yangtze River
to make way for the construction of the Three Gorges dam. But
questions on the value of the project to China, and the Chinese, are becoming
louder.
In a new book titled
"The River Dragon Has Come!" Chinese scientists, journalists and
environmentalists -- banned from criticizing the project in their home country
-- ask why anyone would want to build a dam that would force more than one
million people from their homes? And
why wreak widespread environmental havoc in the countryside, when a series of
smaller projects would produce just as much energy? ask
concerned Chinese.
Dai Qing, one of China's best-known writers, calls the project
a "symbol of uncontrolled development." She hopes the book of essays
-- edited by two North American environmental organizations, Probe
International and the International Rivers Network -- will prove the Three
Gorges Dam "is the most environmentally and socially destructive project
in the world."
Dai Qing and others -- some of whom had to hide their real
names -- reveal the deep-rooted problems surrounding the Three Gorges project
that the government is attempting to silence.
Government officials
say the dam will generate needed electricity, provide flood control and ease
navigation on the Yangtze. The reports in "River Dragon," however,
reveal quite a different picture.
The dam, scheduled to be completed between 2009 and 2013, would
create a gigantic reservoir on the middle of the Yangtze -- China's longest
river -- evicting more than one million people.
Water will rise
throughout most of the Three Gorges area, a fabled lattice-work of waterways,
permanently flooding about 32,000 hectares of prime farmland, 13 cities, 140
towns, 1,352 villages, 657 factories, and hundreds of archaeological relics --
some more than 6,000 years old.
Besides the loss of
farmland, critics say the dam will further threaten many endangered species,
such as the white-fin dolphin and various fish species, writes Dai Qing.
Comparing this
project to other dams in China that collapsed after completion and resulted in
tens of thousands of deaths, several Chinese writers note that the Three Gorges
Dam is being built over several seismic faults.
The dam's capacity to
generate electricity depends on avoiding a massive buildup of sediment behind
the dam, critics say. They point to the Three Gate Gorge dam on the Yellow
River, which has induced floods and led to the resettlement of more than
400,000 people. "It now produces less than one-third of the power that was
promised, its turbines are damaged by sediment, and it will not be able to
fulfill its flood-control function," writes Dai Qing.
Similar
concerns were raised by the California-based Sklar- Luers & Associates, an independent engineering
consultant group.
Sedimentation problems and other engineering miscalculations including
potential coffer dam failures "threaten the
safety and viability" of the project, say the engineers.
Reports in the
"River Dragon" say the dam will turn the Yangtze into a giant
cesspool. "By severing the mighty river and slowing the flow of its water,
the dam will cause pollution from industrial and residential sources to
concentrate in the river, rather than be flushed out at sea," writes
Chinese journalist Jin Hui. "The result will be
a poisoned river."
The forced relocation
of people will cause an increase in deforestation and soil erosion as they are pushed onto overused land. "The environment of the
Three Gorges area cannot sustain the hundreds of thousands of people who are
supposed to resettle there," writes Chen Guojie,
a research fellow at the Chengdu Geological
Institute.
Critics also say the escalating
cost of the dam -- which is now estimated to be
between $27 billion to $70 billion -- could wreck the economy. Even the World
Bank, by far the largest public financier of dam projects worldwide, has warned
that the pool level of the 660 kilometer-long reservoir will not be an
economically viable proposition.
"Was this
crucial decision to build the biggest dam in the world made on the basis of
scientific feasibility or was it decided because of the ambitions of
politicians intent on forcing the project through as an icon of superpower
status and national prestige?" asks Dai Qing.
"The River
Dragon Has Come!" is Dai Qing's second volume on
the controversial project. Her first, "Yangtze!
Yangtze!" was published nine years ago. It was
banned in China and earned her a 10-month prison sentence. Her writings in
China were banned for life. Undaunted, she continues
to speak out against the dam, under constant police surveillance, from within
Beijing.
While she and other
opponents recognize the need for more energy sources and flood control, they
argue that these can be attained at much lower human,
environmental, and financial cost by building a series of smaller dams in
sparsely populated areas in the tributaries and upper reaches of the Yangtze.
Can
the Three Gorges project be stopped?
There is no easy
answer, says Dai Qing, although efforts outside China
to cutoff the flow of foreign financing could stop the dam from operating.
"If the project is to be supported financially by multinational organizations,
then it cannot avoid the scrutiny of the outside world."
As the book begins to
appear in stores across the country, two Washington-based environmental groups,
Friends of the Earth (FOE) and the International Rivers Network, along with
other organizations, are calling on investors to halt their support of the
controversial dam.
In letters sent last
month to Lehman Brothers, C.S. First Boston, J.P. Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Smith
Barney, and BankAmerica Corporation, they urged the firms to stop underwriting
bonds for the State Development Bank (SDB) of China, whose leading creditor is
the Three Gorges Development Corporation. In January 1997, these
firms underwrote a $330 million bond issue for the SDB, say the groups. So far there has
been no official response from the banks.
"The Three
Gorges Dam is on its way to becoming the leading non-performing asset in the
history of finance," says Michelle Chan-Fishel,
a policy analyst with FOE. "Ironically, these bonds are propping up the
very projects that are causing much of the deteriorating health of China's
banking industry."
