Heatwave puts China's giant dam in
the dock By Poon Siu-tao
HONG KONG - It's been hot in China. When
the temperature in Chongqing hit a 53-year high of
44.5 degrees Celsius this summer, people noted
that the city is on the upper reaches of the
Yangtze River and began to wonder whether the
construction of the Three Gorges Dam downriver
might take some blame for the unusually hot and
dry weather.
Green critics claim that the
prolonged heat and drought is a
typical environmental
consequence of a great dam. According to Wang
Hongqi, a Beijing-based geographical and
environmental scholar, the dam unexpectedly
functions as a colossal screen preventing water
vapor from the Yangtze River from normally
circulating in the area.
Situated in
southwest China, Sichuan province is a broad basin
in terms of topography. When the water vapor
cycles between the basin and the outside is
impeded, the temperature inside begins rising,
causing droughts as time goes by. This is called
the "barrel effect", according to Wang.
However, Wang's hypothesis is rejected by
Zhang Qiang, chief of the Climate Impact
Assessment Office under the China Meteorological
Administration (CMA). Zhang insists that the
heatwave lingering in Sichuan is caused by the
global environment, and that there is insufficient
scientific proof to verify the "barrel effect"
theory.
At this stage, one thing is sure:
the debate will not reach a conclusion any time
soon, due to the fact that neither side can
provide authoritative data to support its
argument, and to the fact that no simulation
experiment in this regard was conducted before the
government gave its green light to building the
gigantic dam.
Startlingly, no scientific
evaluation of the possible impact on the local
weather was ever conducted as part of the
feasibility study of Three Gorges Dam, which cost
200 billion yuan (US$25.32 billion) and affects
millions of people. Huge projects are bound to
have immense impact on the ambient ecology and
environment, including climate.
In this
case, critics maintain that the Chinese government
should have had scientists build a miniature
system in the lab and observe its potential impact
on earthquakes, landslides, deforestation,
species, and climate. The final decision should
have been made after sufficient public
consultations.
Unfortunately, the dam is a
showcase orchestrated by former Chinese premier Li
Peng when he was in his heyday. Despite a
vociferous outcry at home and a disbelieving
suspicion abroad, the then central government of
China put a gag on public discussion and failed to
provide any simulation-based data, except biased
assessments, before recklessly launching the
project.
Today the parching weather in the
Sichuan basin, including Chongqing, has brought
the dam back into the firing line, but the
authorities have no convincing empirical data to
defend it. Embarrassing scandals like this,
presumably with more to come, will only impair
officials' reputation and credibility.
Nowadays, Chinese officials of all ranks
are even more manic about launching massive
construction projects, mainly because the
financial resources available to the government
are accumulating, larger projects offer more
opportunities for corruption, and big projects
contribute to gross domestic product, which is a
yardstick by which to win promotion.
A a
recent example of the latter is the Xinfeng
coal-fired power plant in Inner Mongolia recently
slammed by the State Council, China's cabinet,
because local officials, hell-bent on boosting the
GDP of their province, proceeded with the project
in defiance of the central government's desire to
rein in the economy.
Other big
multi-billion projects of this type started in
recent years include the South-North Water
Diversion scheme, the West-East Natural Gas
Pipeline, the newly inaugurated Qinghai-Tibet
Railway. Lately, a waterway project to channel
Tibet streams into the drying Yellow River has
also been put on the table.
Under the
current decision-making mechanism, construction
projects of that scale are not required to undergo
public consultation and scientific assessment, no
matter how much they are likely to impact the
surrounding environment. In many cases, the
compulsory environmental evaluation procedure
turns out to be only a formality. As the
problem-ridden projects are completed, time bombs
have also been set for the environment.
For instance, the Nanjing Changjiang
Bridge, built during the Cultural Revolution and
the first bridge spanning the Yangtze River to be
designed and constructed by China on its own, was
long considered a landmark achievement. But
without long-term perspective and comprehensive
planning, the bridge was found to be too low for
10,000-ton-class vessels to pass underneath.
Another example is the Sanmen Gorge
hydroelectric project on the Yellow River which
was also once hailed as a significant achievement.
However, without proper scientific evaluation, the
sedimentation problem has never been resolved, and
the project has become purely ornamental,
incapable of generating power or controlling
floods. One may wonder whether the same fate
awaits the Three Gorges Dam.
Poon
Siu-tao is a Hong Kong-based contributor to
the Chinese edition of Asia Times Online.
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