Chinese dam director shifts stance on impact
Thursday, 22 November 2007
Jamil Anderlini
A senior Chinese official who had warned of impending environmental disaster in the Three Gorges dam region now says the damage caused by the project is not as bad as expected.
In an interview published by China's tightly controlled Xinhua news service, Wang Xiaofeng, director of the Three Gorges project committee in charge of overseeing the world's largest hydroelectric scheme, said environmental problems were less serious than predicted in feasibility reports from the early 1990s.
Most of those reports are regarded as deeply flawed by opponents of the dam and have been refuted by international experts who say they did not contain basic assessments of the potential impact of the dam.
In a Xinhua report in September, Mr Wang was the most senior of several officials who said the dam had exerted a "notably adverse" impact and warned of serious landslides resulting from the dam that "could lead to catastrophe" if no preventive measures were taken.
At the time it appeared to be the first public admission from senior dam officials that the project's negative consequences were worse than the government's repeated rosy assurances.
Mr Wang's comments attracted intense attention from domestic and international media and his apparent change of heart follows a series of reports examining the negative environmental and social consequences of the dam.
In the latest Xinhua report, Mr Wang repeated the party's official line that the dam's "benefits still outweigh its drawbacks" and that the "environmental impacts have never been overlooked".
He was also reported as saying he had personally checked the operation of water-treatment plants in the region and found them all to be working normally.
That directly contradicts assertions made by Tan Qiwei, the vice-mayor for the municipality of Chongqing where the treatment plants are located, who recently told the Financial Times that the majority of those facilities were operating only sporadically.
"All the problems that were predicted long ago by opponents of the dam have now come true and the reality is just not going to square with the government's optimistic predictions," according to a Beijing-based diplomat who asked not to be named because he works closely with the government on environmental issues.
In recent years, journalists and some activists have been allowed to speak more freely on environmental issues but there remain limits on what can be criticised.
A senior Chinese official who had warned of impending environmental disaster in the Three Gorges dam region now says the damage caused by the project is not as bad as expected.
In an interview published by China's tightly controlled Xinhua news service, Wang Xiaofeng, director of the Three Gorges project committee in charge of overseeing the world's largest hydroelectric scheme, said environmental problems were less serious than predicted in feasibility reports from the early 1990s.
Most of those reports are regarded as deeply flawed by opponents of the dam and have been refuted by international experts who say they did not contain basic assessments of the potential impact of the dam.
In a Xinhua report in September, Mr Wang was the most senior of several officials who said the dam had exerted a "notably adverse" impact and warned of serious landslides resulting from the dam that "could lead to catastrophe" if no preventive measures were taken.
At the time it appeared to be the first public admission from senior dam officials that the project's negative consequences were worse than the government's repeated rosy assurances.
Mr Wang's comments attracted intense attention from domestic and international media and his apparent change of heart follows a series of reports examining the negative environmental and social consequences of the dam.
In the latest Xinhua report, Mr Wang repeated the party's official line that the dam's "benefits still outweigh its drawbacks" and that the "environmental impacts have never been overlooked".
He was also reported as saying he had personally checked the operation of water-treatment plants in the region and found them all to be working normally.
That directly contradicts assertions made by Tan Qiwei, the vice-mayor for the municipality of Chongqing where the treatment plants are located, who recently told the Financial Times that the majority of those facilities were operating only sporadically.
"All the problems that were predicted long ago by opponents of the dam have now come true and the reality is just not going to square with the government's optimistic predictions," according to a Beijing-based diplomat who asked not to be named because he works closely with the government on environmental issues.
In recent years, journalists and some activists have been allowed to speak more freely on environmental issues but there remain limits on what can be criticised.