3 Gorges Dam boss denies media reports on environmental catastrophe

Asian Economic News, Dec 1, 2007

BEIJING, Nov. 27 Kyodo

A senior Chinese government official overseeing the Three Gorges Dam project on Tuesday denied reports, extensively carried in state-run media, that the scheme could spark an ''environmental catastrophe.''

Wang Xiaofeng, director of the government's Three Gorges Dam construction committee, told reporters the scheme has had little environmental impact and is successfully generating electricity and protecting the Yangtze River from floods.

The official Xinhua news agency, which comes under the direct control of the Cabinet or State Council, published a report in September quoting several officials connected to the scheme as saying that the dam has massively increased the risk of serious landslides in the area.

Tan Qiwei, vice mayor of Chongqing, told Xinhua that the shore along the dam's reservoir has collapsed in 91 places and a total of 36 kilometers has caved in.

Another official, Huang Xuebin, head of the Headquarters for Prevention and Control of Geological Disasters in the Three Gorges Reservoir, said that landslides on the shoreline have created massive waves in the reservoir which have crashed onto the opposite bank.

Officials told Xinhua that the weight of water behind the 185-meter-high dam, along with fluctuations in water levels, have started to erode the Yangtze's river banks, triggering serious landslides, and that measures are needed to avoid a catastrophe.

But Three Gorges Dam project director Wang told a press conference in Beijing on Tuesday, ''Before the dam was built this was an area prone to geological disasters, but we have invested over 10 billion yuan ($1.35 billion) to prevent this. Geological disasters have now been effectively controlled.''

''It's impossible to say there will never be a problem in the future, but the Chinese government has paid great attention to this problem and there will not be any major damage to the life and property of people living along the Yangtze River,'' he added.

Wang also dismissed suggestions that the dam is causing extensive silting and water pollution, although he said there is a slight problem with algae spreading in some of the Yangtze's tributaries.

Several international news organizations have visited the area near the Three Gorges Dam in recent weeks and locals said they have felt tremors and seen landslides near the reservoir.

About 30 people died last week when the bus they were traveling in was buried in a landslide near the dam's reservoir, although Xinhua suggested the accident in Hubei Province may have been sparked by heavy rain in the area.

Environmentalists in China and abroad have warned for decades that the Three Gorges Dam scheme is likely to cause huge environmental damage, but these reports have been rejected by the government as alarmist.

Wang said, ''Since 1935, hundreds of thousands have died in floods on the Yangtze, should we not control the damage inflicted by nature? I think we will now be able to weather the worst flooding for a thousand years.''

About 1.2 million people previously living in the area, many of whose homes were submerged under water as the reservoir behind the dam was filled, have already been resettled during the construction of the project, which began in 1993.