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dam-l Epupa article in Mail and Guardian
>Mail and Guardian
>Johannesburg, South Africa. January 27, 1998
>Critics condemn dam report
>
>
>A report on building a massive dam in northwest Namibia has been condemned
>by critics for failing to adequately examine the social and environmental
>impact, and for failing to hold public hearings. But the government is eager
>to move ahead. DANIELLE KNIGHT reports
>
>
>A FEASIBILITY study on building the Epupa Dam in northwest Namibia is
>riddled with wrong
>conclusions, false assumptions and is missing substantial data, say
>independent analysts. As it
>stands, the study docoment should not be used as a basis for a
>well-informed decision on the
>project, they add.
>
>Funded by the Norwegian and Swedish aid agencies, NORAD and SIDA, the
>study to build what would be
>the highest hydro-electric dam in Africa was conducted by the Namibian
>company Burmeister Partners
>at a cost of seven million dollars.
>
>The Namibian government hoped the study would justify the plan to dam the
>Cunene river in time for a
>public hearing on the project due early February. But several
>international reviewers, coordinated
>by local and international non-governmental organisations (NGOs) say the
>study contains
>"inadequacies in its sections on economics, social and environmental
>impacts, hydrological
>assumptions and alternative energy analysis."
>
>"There should be no public hearings at all on this woefully incomplete
>report," says one reviewer -
>Sidney Harring, a professor of law at the City University of New York and
>a former Fulbright fellow
>in Namibia. "Large scale dams are no longer simply engineering matters:
>the human and environmental
>impacts are fundamental and must be given full weight."
>
>The reviews by outside experts in the fields of hydrology, freshwater
>ecology, economics,
>international law and alternative energy, coordinated by groups such as
>the California-based
>International Rivers Network and Earthlife-Namibia, have been submitted to
>the Namibian government.
>They form the background to the public hearing on the project and
>discussions on the study next
>month in Windhoek, the Namibian capital.
>
>The Namibian government argues that the 500-million dollar project to
>build the Epupa dam would
>bring schools and jobs to a poor region and provide between 200 to 360
>megawatts of energy.
>
>But, if the dam is built, the resulting lake will flood 380 square
>kilometers of land in inhabited
>by thousands of Ovahimba people - also known as Himba herders - a groups
>of semi-nomadic
>pastoralists who live entirely off of their sheep, cattle, and goats in
>the border area of Namibia
>and Angola.
>
>"We don't need work," says Kathimbathere Mbendwa. "We already have our
>livestock and we live off
>them."
>
>"If the dam is built our grazing area will be destroyed, our ancestors'
>graves will be destroyed,
>and more people will come and settle here," said a Himba elder at a tribal
>council meeting. "They
>will have to build the dam on top of us."
>
>Despite the controversy surrounding the Epupa dam - and the fact that both
>the World Bank and the
>European Union say they are not interested in providing support for the
>project as it currently
>stands - the Namibian government seems deterred to find funding and begin
>construction.
>
>The feasibility study was an attempt to bring credibility to the proposed
>project in order to
>stabilize funding but, according to the outside experts, it failed.
>
>"I strongly recommend that this project not be undertaken," says Steven
>Rivkin, a professor of
>economics at Amherst college. While the study concludes that expected
>benefits of the dam exceed
>scheduled costs, "I do not believe that this dam project passes the narrow
>test of economic
>viability using only the quantifiable costs and benefits, much less so
>when all costs and benefits
>are considered," he said.
>
>Rivkin believes that the dam offers Namibia the least flexibility and the
>most risk compared to
>other energy options. Both electricity demand and future power costs seem
>overestimated in the
>study, Rivkin concludes.
>
>Also, non-quantifiable impacts are downplayed, he says. "The fact that
>this project would
>permanently eliminate the homeland for the Himba people and the precious
>natural resource of Epupa
>Falls reduces further the likelihood that this project will benefit the
>people of Namibia."
>
>According to professor Harring, the social portion of the study, which
>analyzes the potential
>negative impacts on affected people's lives, is also not viable.
>
>"The study is so incomplete that any scheduling of public hearing is
>premature," he writes. "None of
>the project's social issues can be adequately addressed in hearings until
>a full social mitigation
>study is completed."
>
>
>
>
>
>
>Large parts of the social portion of the study were suspended and never
>resumed since Himba
>communities refused to continue and field staff were reportedly harassed.
>
>In March last year, Deputy Minister of Mining and Energy, Jasay Nyamu,
>said, "It is not a question
>of whether Epupa will be built or not, but rather where it will be built."
>Himba communities
>immediately felt that their input in the study was irrelevant.
>
>The Himba then refused to continue with the household, water, and health
>surveys of the social
>portion of the study. And, field staff conducting these parts of the study
>were reportedly harassed
>and intimidated by local government officials.
>
>"The scant information on the social impacts trivialises the Himba culture
>and economy, minimises
>the project's impacts on the Himba way of life, glosses over the Himba's
>land and water rights, and
>offers a glib assessment of resettlement costs," wrote professor Harring.
>
>Harring also points out that the authors of the study downplay the
>environmental risks of the
>project. Besides flooding miles of green riverbank which is the main
>source of dry-season grazing
>for Himba herders, the dam will create a reservoir that will have a high
>rate of evaporation that
>would amount to many times Namibia's total urban consumption, he says.
>
>"Considering that Namibia has an ever-increasing water shortage problem,
>the Cunene represents a
>priceless water reserve," he says. "The dam's huge evaporation loss and
>the desperate need for water
>in Namibia alone should eliminate any proposal to build this dam."
>Roughly, 900 million cubic meters
>would be lost to evaporation, says the Namibian branch of the
>environmental group Earthlife Africa.
>Facing a serious water shortage, Namibia has one of the highest
>evaporation rates in the world. Most
>- about 83 percent - of the meager rainfall of this hot and dry region is
>lost to evaporation.
>
>Outside experts also dispute the study's conclusions that the dam is the
>cheapest form of
>alternative energy.
>
>Washington-based alternative energy expert Jamal Gore says that contrary
>to the claims in the study,
>the cost of energy from a combined cycle gas power plant would be 40
>percent cheaper than
>electricity from Epupa. The study, he says, also misrepresented the costs
>of energy from the Kudu
>gas fields, off the Namibian coast.
>
>Gore also says the study underestimates the viability of wind and solar
>energy alternatives for the
>region.
>
>************************************
>Steve Rothert
>International Rivers Network
>Okavango Liaison Group
>Plot 253 Moremi Road
>PO Box 2427
>Gaborone, Botswana
>Tel: 267-353-337, Fax/Message: 267-359-337
>Email: stever@info.bw
>************************************
>