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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
Precedence: bulk

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.