Three Gorges Dam - Updates
(NPR) China’s Three Gorges: Assessing the Impact
January 2, 2008 · As the reservoir behind the Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River is to be filled to capacity, controversy has resurfaced, following official admissions that the dam could cause major ecological disasters unless preventive measures are taken.
The Three Gorges Dam … is one of the world’s most ambitious engineering projects — and part of the challenge is relocating the 1.3 million people whose homes and fields are being submerged in the reservoir.
China’s government says that the mass migration project is going smoothly, with most of the residents already having moved. Some have been relocated to other provinces and others just uphill from the site.
6 December 2007
CHINA’S THREE GORGES DAM - A MAGNET FOR CONTROVERSY
In October, China’s government announced that another four million people would have to be relocated from areas near the reservoir created by the dam, although officials claimed the resettlement has nothing to do with the dam.
The environment and the river ecology have been severely disrupted. Fish and mammal species face extinction because of increased shipping traffic and water pollution coming from Chongqing’s industrial belt.
And experts say the dam causes erosion, traps silt, and increases the risk of landslides. Last month, at least 35 people were killed in a landslide near the dam reservoir.
30 November 2007
There are fears that China’s Three Gorges Dam is causing serious environmental problems, despite official claims to the contrary.
Local farmers, environmental campaigners and even officials themselves have voiced concern about environmental damage.
That damage includes landslides that have triggered 50 metre-high waves on the reservoir behind the dam, according to one local official.
But despite these widespread accusations, the Chinese central government insists there are no geological “abnormalities”.
27 September 2007
Three Gorges Dam is a disaster in the making, China admits
It was hailed as one of the engineering feats of the 20th century. Now the Three Gorges Dam across China’s mighty Yangtze River threatens to become an environmental catastrophe.
In an unprecedented admission of blame, Communist Party officials gave a stark warning yesterday of impending disaster in the vast area around the dam if preventive measures are not urgently introduced.
For more than a decade China has promoted the world’s biggest hydro-electric project as the best way to end centuries of floods along the basin of the Yangtze and to provide energy to fuel the country’s economic boom.
… [Now] surrounding areas are paying a heavy, and potentially calamitous, environmental cost. Hundreds of thousands of people may have to be moved. A total of 1.3 million have been displaced by the dam already.
… A government forum listed a host of threats such as conflicts over land shortages, ecological deterioration as a result of irrational development and, especially, erosion and landslides on steep hills around the dam. Other authorities have already raised concerns over algae bloom downstream from the Three Gorges and a deterioration in aquatic life.
Full Story
China: New Dam Builder for the World
By Shai Oster
Wall Street Journal
Home to almost half of the world’s 45,000 biggest dams, China has embarked on a push to export its hydropower know-how to developing countries — even as it contends with environmental damage and social upheaval at home from the massive Three Gorges Dam.
Many other countries and international organizations have begun to shy away from dam building. But Chinese companies and banks are now involved in billions of dollars worth of deals to construct at least 47 major dams in 27 countries, including Sudan and Myanmar, nations criticized for human-rights abuses and poor environmental track records. (WSJ - Subscription required)