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DAM-L Kariba and Moz flooding/LS (fwd)
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Date: Mon, 12 Mar 2001 13:43:31 -0800
To: irn-safrica@netvista.net
From: Lori Pottinger <lori@irn.org>
Subject: Kariba and Moz flooding/LS
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Kariba Floodgates Remain Open Despite Mozambican Appeals
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Panafrican News Agency (Dakar)
March 11, 2001
Posted to the web March 11, 2001
Maputo, Mozambique
Attempts to persuade the Zambezi river Authority (ZRA)
to close one of the floodgates on the Kariba dam in
order to lessen the volume of water flowing into
flood-stricken Mozambique have so far proved
unsuccessful.
The problem hinges on the absence of a top ZRA
official at key meetings held in Lusaka, Zambia.
HCB, the company that operates the Cahora Bassa dam in
Tete province, has shut one of the Cahora Bassa
floodgates.
The giant dam has eight floodgates: four are fully
open, and a fifth had been half open. This gate was
closed on Friday, in order to mitigate the flooding on
the lower Zambezi.
Mozambican authorities hoped to persuade ZRA to shut
one of the three Kariba floodgates that are currently
open, in order to reduce the pressure on Cahora Bassa.
According to sources contacted by AIM on Sunday, a
joint delegation from the National Water Board (DNA)
and from HCB visited Lusaka on Friday to discuss the
matter with the ZRA.
ZRA technical staff agreed with the proposal to shut a
Kariba floodgate - but said they had no authority to
do so. The authority lay with the ZRA Chief Executive
Office, Dr. Tumbarre, and he was not present at the
meeting.
The Mozambican delegation left Lusaka empty handed.
Subsequent attempts by Mozambican officials to
telephone Dr Tumbarre, to press on him the urgency of
closing a floodgate, have met with nothing but
silence.
According to the DNA, the Cahora Bassa lake is now
completely full, and there is a rough balance between
the water entering the lake and the water discharged
from the dam floodgates.
As of Saturday, Cahora Bassa was discharging 8,400
cubic metres of water a second. Around 8,400 metres is
also entering the dam lake from Zambia and Zimbabwe.
If Kariba can close a floodgate, this would allow
Cahora Bassa to reduce its discharges somewhat, thus
lessening the amounts of water descending on
critically flooded regions on the lower Zambezi.
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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
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