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DAM-L IPS story on Tanzanian dam/LS (fwd)



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Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 12:15:10 -0700
To: irn-safrica@netvista.net
From: Lori Pottinger <lori@irn.org>
Subject: IPS story on Tanzanian dam/LS
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              DEVELOPMENT-TANZANIA: Endangered Species
              Challenge Electricity Supply

By Danielle Knight
KIHANSI, Tanzania, May 8 (IPS) - Ten years ago, the Lower Kihansi
Hydropower project seemed
like the perfect solution to Tanzania's growing electricity needs.

Before it was built, proponents said the dam, 25 metres high and located
in a gorge created by the Kihansi
River in the country's southeastern highlands, would be relatively small
and would involve creating a modest
reservoir and relocating only a handful of people living in the area.
Once completed, it would be capable of
producing about 25 percent of the country's energy.

Things have changed since the power plant came on line in December 1999.
The project has drawn
environmentalists, foreign donors, and energy-hungry Tanzanians into a
fight over three endangered species:
two plants and a toad the size of a human fingernail.

Controversy began to bloom in the waning days of construction, when
last-minute environmental impact
studies highlighted what earlier investigations had failed to notice:
That diverting water for the project likely
would cause the extinction of the three species. All the endangered
species depend for their survival on the
unique moist habitat created by the water spray of the Kihansi River as
it goes over waterfalls and splashes on
boulders deep in the gorge.

Environmental groups assailed the World Bank for not conducting thorough
assessments in the first place. The
Bank helped finance the project with 123 million dollars in soft loans
from the International Development
Association. The 275-million-dollar project is situated in a region long
known for its rich biodiversity.

''That the original environmental work did not reveal the existence of
the toads made everybody's lives a lot
more difficult,'' Ron Brigish, the World Bank's coordinator for
programmes in Tanzania and Uganda,
acknowledged. He insisted, however, that environmental assessments
conducted in the early 1990s had been
thorough.

The mountainous region is part of the rainforests of the Eastern Arc
mountain range, which runs through
eastern Tanzania up to southern Kenya. These rainforests are considered
some of the oldest original forest and
Africa - estimated to be around 30 million years old - and contain a
variety of bird, plant and insect species
found nowhere else.

Of more than 2,000 plant species, more than one-third are endemic to the
mountains, according to scientists.

''Some of its ecosystem types and species of flora and fauna are yet to
be identified or classified,'' said
Elisabeth Olsen, of the Norway-based Association for International Water
and Forest Studies, or FIVAS.

''Proper environmental impact assessments were therefore of high
importance for evaluating the dam, but
project environmental evaluations have been defective from the
beginning,'' Olsen told IPS.

She said the original World Bank environmental impact assessment covered
only the most basic requirements,
and ignored areas downstream of the dam.

The Bank's Board of Directors approved the project in 1993 and the
Norwegian aid agency, NORAD, was
asked to join the project in 1994.

NORAD agreed with environmentalists' concerns and decided to support the
project only if further studies
were done about the downstream impacts on the gorge. Since then, the
project has received 59 million dollars
from Norway, 29 million from Sweden, and 32 million from the European
Investment Bank.

During these new studies of the gorge in 1996, the tiny yellow- green
Kihansi spray toad, found only along the
gorge, was discovered along with two rare plants. Later scientific
investigations found that these newly found
species probably only existed in the five-kilometre gorge.

Scientists and conservationists are especially concerned about the
unusual toad, which does not lay eggs but
gives birth through its mouth to live babies. Between 10,000 and 14,000
Kihansi spray toads are estimated to
live on an escarpment in the gorge.

After word of the toad got out, the environmental group Friends of the
Earth said the project violated the
International Convention on Biological Diversity.

Sweden and NORAD then decided to fund a one-year emergency mitigation
project that started Dec 31,
2000. Under the initiative, scientists have descended on the project to
study the toad.

Meanwhile, ecologists with Norplan, the Norwegian company that
constructed the dam, have begun
investigating nearby areas for their suitability as alternative habitats
for the toads.

Five hundred toads have also been sent to captive breeding programmes
set up by scientists in two major US
zoos, in Detroit and New York.

The most controversial mitigation measure under the one-year project is
the diversion of some of the water
from the hydropower project to go to a sprinkler system in the gorge
that ensures the toads still have the moist
environment they need.

This causes the hydropower project to lose about 15 megawatts of
capacity, or enough electricity for the
nearby town of Mbeya, which is a regional capital.

Deklan Mhaiki, the Kihansi plant manager with the Tanzania Electric
Supply Company, Tanesco, said this loss
of capacity is especially detrimental to the country's electricity
supply during the 10-month dry season, when
there is little water flowing in the Kihansi River.

''In the dry season, the plant loses about 25 percent of its generating
capacity because the water is diverted to
the sprinkler system for the toad,'' Mhaiki said. The energy from the
project goes into the national grid, which
has the power capacity of about 400 megawatts, he explained, adding that
Tanzania's demand for energy for
domestic and industrial use has long surpassed the supply and is now
estimated at 550 megawatts.

''There is no doubt that demand for energy is rising,'' he said, noting
the country's occasional blackouts and
power- rationing schemes.

Olav Vallevik, an engineer with Norplan, told IPS that Tanzania would
have to burn about 3,500 metric tons
of expensive diesel or gas fuel per month to compensate for power
diverted to the sprinkler system. Project
staff, he added, hoped to find alternative sources of water for the
system so the power plant could return to
full capacity.

Francis Nyange, coordinator of the Journalists' Environmental
Association of Tanzania, said those who
conducted the earlier studies should have to help pay for efforts to
save the toad.

''Human beings make mistakes, but we should learn from this one so that
next time the country pursues such a
project, environmental impact assessments will be done carefully and
thoroughly before the project is
constructed,'' he says. (END/IPS/af/en/dk/aa/01)
-- 
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
       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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