China last week demolished the temporary barrier that had held back the mighty Yangtze River while the country built the massive but controversial Three Gorges Dam. But, letting loose the river’s full force into the hydropower plant won’t end arguments over the dam’s necessity or wisdom.
True, the world’s largest hydroelectric project is an engineering marvel. Almost 1.5 miles long and over 600 feet high, Three Gorges dwarfs the largest concrete structure in the United States, the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River, which is about a half mile shorter across its crest and 50 feet lower than the Chinese dam. Like Grand Coulee, which brought light to the Pacific Northwest in the 1940s, Chinese leaders say that when all 26 turbines are in place by 2008 (a year ahead of schedule), Three Gorges will provide central China with a whopping 18,000 megawatts.
But the cost of that power may not be measured either in kilowatts or money. Officially, the project cost $25 billion, but critics claim the real price is much higher because government numbers don’t figure in the true cost of corruption.
Indeed, allegations of corruption lead to the worst fear about the dam: whether shoddy construction makes the gargantuan structure unsafe. Critics note that in 1999, a steel bridge in the Chinese city of Chongqing collapsed and killed 40 people.
Chinese leaders say the dam will prevent flooding; over several centuries, the Yangtze’s notorious rises killed hundreds of thousands of people. But the world doesn’t yet know if Three Gorges improved or worsened public safety.
And, its reservoir likely will be foul. Since China doesn’t enforce water pollution laws, the 400-mile lake expected to form behind the dam may become a toxic soup.
China also tolerated, perhaps encouraged, human rights abuses in the process of relocating 1.2 million peasants whose 100 villages will be flooded by the new lake.
Like all dams, Three Gorges will eventually collect silt. Over time, the silt may impede navigation across the huge reservoir. Worse, the dam’s existence will reduce the supply of ground-building silt to the Yangtze delta by 35 percent. As Americans learned when Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, a shrunken river delta can have devastating consequences. And near the Yangtze’s delta is Shanghai, one of China’s most dynamic cities.
China’s engineers are proud of their technical accomplishments. But whether the mammoth project will prove a boon or a folly of historic proportions is a judgment only future generations can make.
