In the wake of controversy over the impact of the Three Gorges
Dam, China has pledged to take more measures to protect the
environment in the area.
The new measures, announced by the office of the Three Gorges
Project Committee of the State Council in a statement on Tuesday,
consist of seven projects designed to address possible
environmental problems and an environment monitoring system to do
the assessing.
"It is still a long way to go if we speak of the environmental
protection issues of the project, although more than half the
construction work has been completed," said the office in the
statement.
The office said it will strengthen the protection of the
country's water sources and draft plans to guarantee water supply
for relocated people. It will also enhance plans for the
sustainable use of the dam and plans to improve the environment of
submerged areas.
The office has pledged to make more efforts to prevent cities,
towns, villages and enterprises neighbouring the dam from dumping
pollutants, to improve protection of biological diversity of the
area, and to establish a reporting and emergency response mechanism
in case of water pollution accidents by building an environment
monitoring system.
"We want to build a first-class hydropower facility out of the
project, but we also aim for a good environment," the office said
in the statement.
The Three Gorges dam, located on the middle reaches of the
Yangtze River, the country's longest, was launched in 1993 with a
budget of 180 billion yuan (about 22.5 billion U.S. dollars) in an
effort to generate power and to tame periodic devastating floods on
the Yangtze.
The total project comprises a 185-meter-high dam, completed in
early 2006, a five-tier ship lock and the 660-km-long
reservoir.
However, the gigantic dam project has come under worries over
its damages to the environment as it heads toward completion before
2009.
Chinese officials and experts have admitted at a forum held in
Wuhan that the Three Gorges Dam project has caused an array of
ecological ills, including more frequent landslides and pollution.
They warned if preventive measures are not taken, there could be an
environmental "catastrophe".
Tan Qiwei, vice mayor of Chongqing, a sprawling metropolis next
to the reservoir, said the shore of the reservoir had collapsed in
91 places and a total of 36 km had caved in.
Frequent geological disasters have threatened the lives of
residents around the reservoir area, said Huang Xuebin, head of the
Headquarters for Prevention and Control of Geological Disasters in
the Three Gorges Reservoir.
The office's director Wang Xiaofeng, however, argued the
environmental impact of China's Three Gorges dam has been less
damaging than feared.
The environmental impact of the dam did not go beyond the scope
predicted by the feasibility report in 1991, and in some aspects,
they are even less severe than predicted, the office said in the
statement, echoing comments made by Wang just days ago.
The statement also said the positive impacts of the gigantic dam
should on the whole outweigh the negatives, citing an official
report of environmental assessment of the project.
The office said negative environmental consequences that may
come along with China's Three Gorges dam would not affect the
feasibility of the project.
In the statement, the office highlighted the flood control
effects of the dam and said the environment of the construction
area is good, according to their monitoring.
The office said the country has devoted a great amount of money
to preventing geological disasters in the reservoir area, which
used to experience frequent cases of landslide before the dam was
built.
The Chinese government has invested heavily in programs designed
to restore and conserve the ecology of the Three Gorges area in
recent years, including 12 billion yuan (about 1.5 billion U.S.
dollars) spent on trying to harness geological disasters such as
landslides.
No major geological disasters or related casualties have
happened in the reservoir area since water level was raised to 156
meters last year, the statement said in reiteration of comments by
Wang.
The statement revealed power generating units at the dam had
turned out a total 193 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity by
September since July 2003, and had provided power supply for
energy-thirsty southern and eastern China as well as central
China.
It said the key project has involved an investment of 45.7
billion yuan by September, with 28.6 billion yuan spent on power
generation projects and 38 billion yuan for relocating people.
The combined investment was kept within the project's budget
sanctioned by the government, 92 percent of the budget if
calculated at prices back in 1993 when construction started.
(Xinhua News Agency November 21, 2007)