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dam-l The Economist, Nov 20 1999 "The dry facts about dams"
The Economist
November 20th 1999 pg. 46
Sender: owner-irn-three-gorges@netvista.net
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The dry facts about dams
India's and China's big projects may be the last of their kind
LOOK across Asia, and you might think
that the Big Dam is alive and well. The
region is home to much of the world’s
dam construction, including two of the
world’s most ambitious projects: those in
India’s Narmada valley and China’s Three
Gorges. Though activists have long complained
about such giant dams, which flood tropical
forests and displace legions of people, Asia’s
politicians remain defiant. China is forging
ahead with the Three Gorges dam, despite its
huge cost: some of $30 billion officially, though
critics say $75 billion. The Narmada project has
already displaced many tens of thousands, and
India vows to stay the course.
Officials point to many splendid benefits
that are to flow from these projects. The Three
Gorges Dam, for example, is designed both to
generate some 20 gigawatts of electricity and
help to control the floodwaters of the
temperamental Yangzi river. India’s planners
promise that the Narmada project will deliver
both electricity and irrigation. Such ambitions
are understandable. Lack of irrigation relegates
millions of Indians to subsistence farming. In
China, the floods last year destroyed 5m homes.
Yet, these two projects may well be prove the
last of the really big dams in Asia.
Ironically, one of the arguments now
used against big dams is the very mix of mo
tives long used to justify them. That is be
cause they have often proven, in practice, to
be in conflict with each other. Flood control,
for example, requires officials to throw open
a dam’s gates; doing so, however, means
irrigation water or power production is lost.
Releasing water to meet green goals, such
as boosting fish populations in the dry season,
means lost electricity sales.
The environmental credentials of dams
are also under scrutiny. Once, they were
embraced by environmentalists as a source of
clean and endlessly renewable energy, but
no longer. The flooding that accompanies
big dams in Asia usually submerges large
tropical forests. Recent studies show that as
such fauna decays, it may release lots of
methane, a much more powerful greenhouse
gas than carbon dioxide. Also, as Vijay
Paranjpye of India’s Pune University notes,
dams in the tropics must endure the ravages
of monsoons. One common result, he says, is
silting-up, which may within a few decades
cut the original generating capacity by 70% or
even 80%.
Another obstacle is that the flow of aid money
is beginning to dry up. Since big dams are so
controversial, even the World Bank, once the
biggest force behind big dams, has grown skittish.
The awful mess it got itself into in India explains
why. The agency suffered a famous setback earlier
this decade when a highly critical outside report
led to its departure from the Narmada project.
That prompted a broader internal review, which
concluded that governments often fail “the acid”
test it recommends for dams- “the restoration of
incomes and standards of living of project-affected
people.”
This points to the thorniest challenge facing big
dams: the social cost. In the past, Asia’s
heavy-handed governments bothered little about
the unfortunates displaced by dams; usually,
officials merely made grand promises of cash
or land. Though some displaced people do now
find better lives, most do not. Some promises
are soon forgotten; others, particularly “land for
land,” prove impractical in densely populated
Asia. Still, the slow but steady advance of
democracy in Asia suggests that it will be
increasingly hard to dismiss lightly the social
impacts of dams.
That, anyway, is the hope of the World
Commission on Dams (WCD) which is working
to build a broad consensus on global principles
for big dams. Achim Steiner, the secretary general
of the WCD, which was created by governments,
development agencies and non-governmental
organisations, notes that even Asia’s zealous builders
of big dams “are being pulled into global principles
by market forces.” This is because they face a financing
squeeze from both the private and public
investors.
The decline in aid money raises the
costs of financing. Also, the inevitable
protests and legal wrangles facing such projects
add financial risk, which translates into higher
costs. Another blow is the continuing
deregulation of the global power industry,
which shifts financing to the private sector- and
so to low risk projects with quick returns. That means
away from big dams and towards gas-fired plants.
But if big dams are out, small ones need not be.
They can achieve many of the benefits promised
by big dams at a fraction of the cost-and with the
support of locals. This will grow ever more important,
argues Mr Steiner, because “more democratic
societies will insist on fuller costing of dams.”
And the locals are growing in importance.
In India, for example, pressure from grassroots
organisations is forcing the government to scale
back its plans for the Narmada valley. The
half-finished Sardar Sarovar dam, which is at
the heart of the scheme, will probably never be
completed. Smitu Kothari of Lokayan, a social-policy
think-tank in Delhi, insists that, “of the 3,300- odd
dam projects that were originally envisioned in the
Narmada valley, there will be a 70% reduction.”
The number of dams is sure to be cut and the
heights of those remaining reduced; many will
also be redesigned to reduce their social and
environmental impact.
Even in China, the big-dam juggernaut is
not quite as formidable as it once seemed.
Doris Shen of the International Rivers Network,
an American non-governmental group, points
to the admission a few weeks ago by Chinese
officials that the $3.4 billion Ertan dam, the biggest
yet completed in China, is having difficulties selling
its electricity, which is significantly more expensive
than that from smaller power stations. As the true
costs of the Three Gorges dam soar toward $75 billion,
she reckons, only hubris or kickbacks will save the project.