[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

dam-l Editorial on SA's dams/LS



OP-ED PIECE ON DAM POLITICS

The following is from the Saturday "Star" (South Africa), 3 November 1998.
The author is with South Africa Rivers Association.

by Graeme Addison

Dam it, let's pour concrete

Water wars have come to South Africa with the bloody occupation of the
Katse Dam installations in Lesotho, argues GRAEME ADDISON. Political and
economic motives drive dam-builders, but the time has come for a national
summit on dams to save what's left of the country's rivers and bring about
sustainable water use.

ARTICLE

Sometime before dawn on September 22, South African forces including
parachute troops moved into the Katse Dam area in the highlands of Lesotho.
They called on mutinous Lesotho soldiers to lay down their arms and when
this did not happen there was an exchange of gunfire and several buildings
were burnt. Some 16 Lesotho men and two South Africans died in the
firefight, which formed part of Operation Boleas, the SADC incursion into
Lesotho to prop up the government.
>From a source in the water planning authority responsible for the Katse
Dam, I have learnt that protection of the dam and its pipeline supplying
Gauteng with water was a top priority of the occupation force. There is no
doubt that Gauteng's water lifeline would be constricted if Katse ceased
its supply. The future growth of South Africa's industrial heartland
depends on a constant flow of liquid wealth from its poor neighbour, the
tiny kingdom of Lesotho.

Long before gunfire shattered the dawn peace, the dignified life of the
Maluti mountain communities in central Lesotho was seriously disrupted by
the dams project. Squatter camps sprang up, Aids was introduced by the
workforce, and prostitution and alcoholism increased. There was fighting
and shooting, and the authorities were criticised for failing to make good
their promises of compensation and assistance to villagers who lost their
land.

Phase 1A of the Lesotho Highlands Water Project (LHWP) was the construction
on the Malibamatso River of the R7.5billion Katse and Muele dams. Phase 1B,
now under way, is the R6.7billion Mohale Dam on the Senqunyane or Little
Orange River. Together they represent one of the biggest public works
projects in the world.

But all is not well on the ground or in the offices of the planners of this
major socieconomic and engineering achievement. A wavering World Bank -
facing an onslaught of criticism over its support for big dams everywhere,
including the LHWP - is rethinking its financial commitments. Prof Kader
Asmal, SA's Minister of Water Affairs and Forestry, is coming in for
unprecedented criticism of his role in promoting big dams. Last year he was
appointed to head the World Commission on Dams by the World Bank and the
World Conservation Union. His role as a neutral arbiter on environmental
and social issues has been questioned since he is a vocal proponent of the
controversial Lesotho dams and other big dam projects in southern Africa.

The Lesotho situation is only a signal that southern Africa has entered the
era of water politics. Internationally and domestically, the political
wrangling and strife over rivers and water supply is predicted as one of
the fundamental issues of the coming millennium. As world water scarcity
bites deeper into economies dependent on cheap water supplies, there is
conflict over river catchments and lakes. Dams like the Three Gorges Dam in
China have become symbols of official tyranny, with whole cities being
flooded and engineers being given free reign to resettle populations who
are inconveniently living in river valleys.


For dam planners, things have gone seriously wrong. In southern Africa  the
opposition to river impoundments - the closing of valleys to make
artificial lakes -  is mounting. Critics argue that the main reasons
advanced for dams do not hold water. Hydroelectric power can be produced
more economically in smaller-scale water schemes or by solar, wind and wave
power. Irrigation water can be tapped off flooding rivers rather than
impounding the rivers for all time (which has the effect of destroying both
upstream and downstream ecologies). And water can be better conserved and
reused to cut down on factory and domestic wastage.

As they say in Windhoek, the town clerk has personally passed every drop of
water - several times. Yet even Windhoek's dry atmosphere is becoming
steamy as opponents of the planned dam at Epupa, on the Cunene River, claim
that President Sam Nujoma wants it for prestige reasons alone. The
US$600million project is unnecessary, say environmentalists because the
Kudu Gas plant will more than meet the country's electricity needs, and
more cheaply too.

Other proposed dams under fire are:

A dam on the pristine Doring River in the Cape Cederberg, mooted to be one
of the largest ever. Minister Asmal recently flew over the river and
remarked that the need for the dam would have to be balanced against nature
conservation.

Dams on the Tugela, Mkomazi and ultimately the Mzimvubu rivers on the wet
eastern side of SA. Conservationists and recreationists have expressed
bitter opposition.

Dams on the Zambezi, Kafue (Zambia) and Komati (Swaziland) rivers. These
massive projects are seen as vote-getters for governments which are unable
to generate popularity in other ways.

Proponents of the dams point to the developmental impact of current
spending and future irrigation and power spin-offs. But the history of
megadams suggests that these promises are always overblown and that Third
World governments like dams because they are easy to build, bring in
foreign capital, and create jobs in the short term.

The Lesotho dams are, if anything, the jewel in the skewed crown of
southern Africa's dam-builders. In January this year, celebrations and much
media hoopla gained the LHWP much-needed positive publicity to mark the
start of water transfer from Katse Dam to Gauteng. President Nelson Mandela
termed the project a "resounding success" while Minister Asmal described it
as part of the region's renewal and renaissance. There was considerable
irony in this, because the Lesotho project had been launched by President
PW Botha as a morale-booster for the apartheid state when all else seemed
to be falling apart, in 1986. Botha's dams repeated a pattern, since the HF
Verwoerd (now Gariep) Dam was built to reassure the faithful that the
Nationalist government was still in charge after Sharpeville in the early
sixties.

Richard Sherman of the Group for Environmental Monitoring pointed out that
Minister Kader Asmal had been a Lesotho dams opponent when the
apartheid-era project was designed, but had since changed tack under
intense pressure from the dam-building fraternity and the World Bank.

Political dams they were and political the Lesotho dams have remained.
Local opposition to Katse hit the headlines in September 1996 when five
people died and about 13 were injured in clashes between police and
strikers. Next, it turned out that promises of compensation and
resettlement for some 2000 people displaced by Katse had not been met, and
the lives of some 24 000 people were affected. The Lesotho dams overall
would consume 11000 hectares of grazing land in a country already short of
farmland.

To cap it all, the official claim that Lesotho had water aplenty and to
spare was contradicted by a senior official in the Southern African
Development Community (SADC). Speaking at a water conference in Lesotho
last year, Lengolo Monyake said that within the next 10-30 years Lesotho
would have to face water scarcity, like other countries in the region. The
dam project's defenders have retorted that  the scheme currently accounts
for nearly 15percent of Lesotho's GDP and is helping the tiny state to
overcome retrenchments of its migrant labour force on SA mines.

Water Affairs and the World Bank reacted to criticism by beefing up the
social responsibility programme. Compensation was paid but, said the
project managers, it should not become a form of welfare - instead, people
must encouraged to find new livelihoods.

Despite the defences, the phalanx of pro-dam opinion-makers has lost
ground. Ranged against them is a loose coalition of environmental
lobbyists, NGOs and churches. Leadership essentially comes from the
California-based International Rivers Network (IRN), whose Africa
co-ordinator, Lori Pottinger, has visited Lesotho to collect the views of
villagers and has been tireless in her criticisms of the scheme, over the
Internet and at conferences. The coalition also includes South African
bodies such as the Group for Environmental Monitoring and the Southern
African Rivers Association. Increasingly, the media in South Africa and
Lesotho are carrying letters and articles questioning the high social and
environmental costs and the political ramifications of the scheme.

Recently, queries have been raised by Rand Water itself, the key
intermediary between the dam-builders and the people of Gauteng who will
use the water. Rand Water has stressed the importance of demand management
for water, suggesting that the Mohale Dam could be delayed by up to 17
years with 40% better water conservation and re-use in Gauteng. Water
Affairs has responded that it is up to the local authorites in Gauteng to
prevent wastage, but government must assure bulk supply based on projected
needs.

Social dislocation and serious environmental damage have been done by the
Katse Dam and more is to follow as people are moved and arable land is
flooded by the Mohale Dam. The impact is permanent and irreversible, and
feedback from the communities shows they are deeply unhappy with their lot.

Officialdom and the World Bank have cruised on. Protests of civic
associations in Alexandra and Soweto were brushed aside. The civics had
called for more and better planning before taxpayers and consumers were
forced to pay for the next dam in the grand plan, Mohale. Last year,
Minister Asmal reassured civil engineers at their annual congress that
there would be no pullback on dam commitments, and he listed major projects
under way or planned. These included Lesotho, the Orange River, the Tugela
and Mkzomazi basins, and the Mzimvubu in the old Transkei - the last
remaining source of water for conventional damming.

But Asmal made a significant admission that dam-building would not solve
SA's water problems in the long term. He said all the water resources in
the country would be fully used in about 30 years and it would not be
possible to simply build more dams to augment supplies.

Conservationists immediately pointed out that this was a confession that
dam-builders were bankrupt of ideas for the future. By continuing with big
dam projects, Water Affairs and civil engineers were ignoring one of the
key principles of the RDP and of development generally: sustainability.

Water Affairs was compared to a  motorist crossing the karoo knowing he is
going to run out of petrol, yet carrying on until the tank ran dry and he
was stranded. Alternatives should be sought now. Desalination of the sea -
which suited a semi-arid country surrounded by oceans - was suggested as
the only realistic programme which should be put in motion immediately.

"What we are saying to the Minister is that he should assume the high moral
ground now by proactively finding alternatives to this senseless policy of
dam-building," says Mark Calverley, a KwaZulu/Natal landowner whose
ecotourism business will be hard-hit if the proposed Jana Dam on the Tugela
River goes ahead. Calverley is a member of the Tugela Biosphere, a game
reserve that would lose most of its riverine bushveld under the dam.

Calverley said his conclusion after attending meetings on the KZNatal dams
was that the water authorities and engineers were merely going through the
motions. They had selected a few sites for economic reasons, and were only
presenting environmentalists with false choices between different damsites.
"The engineers see themselves as conquerers of the rivers and we are merely
asked for our input at the end. On the Tugela, an alternative damsite on
the Klip River was recommended by the environmental study group as the one
likely to have the least impact, but it seems that Jana was chosen anyway.
It's crazy.

"The law should ensure that environmental impact assessments must carry
weight and it should be mandatory to apply them. And then we need certain
precious river areas to be designated as inviolate. You can't just slap a
dam in a convenient spot which happens to be a biosphere reserve," said
Calverley.

The SA Rivers Association, representing ecotourism companies, has called
for a thorough re-examination of policies on dams and rivers. This would
include:

Research and development in desalinisation technology.  SARA says it is in
the interests of engineers to undertake this, there is no shortage of
technical expertise, and the capital outlay on plants and pipelines would
at least equal the current outlay on pouring concrete into river valleys.
The whole thing could be designed as an RDP job-creation project.

 Secondly, the Minister should call a national conference on water supply
technologies and demand management, a Summit on Water involving all
stakeholders. The consulting engineers and foreign bankers who have
dominated for so long must hear their critics and consider the
alternatives.

Lastly, a National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act should be drawn up along the
lines of a similar piece legislation passed 25 years ago in the USA.
Conservationists like Ian Player, founder of the Dusi canoe marathon, have
vowed that they will oppose new dams - but they are really powerless to
prevent them unless Parliament acts to protect the heritage of South
Africa's rivers.

In the view of many, Asmal has proved himself to be the most
forward-looking and effective Minister of Water Affairs in South Africa's
history. His national programme to protect water catchments is a start
towards protecting the remaining wild rivers. Politically, the ANC could
generate support for desalination if it publicly recognised that
dam-building is unsustainable and began to promote the alternative with all
its benefits in spending, job-creation and research.

A river is not just a drain for sewage or a resource for the flushing of
toilets. It is a living ecosystem on which all other ecosystems depend.
Rather have a bit of sea-salt in your coffee than bleed the country dry, or
fight wars over water.

ends


::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
      Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
        and Editor, World Rivers Review
           International Rivers Network
              1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
                  Tel. (510) 848 1155   Fax (510) 848 1008
                        http://www.irn.org
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::