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dam-l Zhu breaches silence on 3G Dam failures, SCMP 5/27/99

(South China Morning Post, Thursday  May 27  1999)

Zhu breaches silence on Three Gorges Dam failures

NOTES ON CHINA by JASPER BECKER

	Premier Zhu Rongji made the first public criticism of
the Three Gorges Dam project in Monday's People's
Daily, admitting all the assumptions about
resettlement had been misplaced.

   For Dai Qing , the dam's most vocal opponent, now
in the United States, it was a rare moment of triumph.

   "In 1987, the Propaganda Department issued an edict
forbidding anyone to publish articles opposing the
project," she said. "Now the Premier himself has
criticised it."

   From the beginning, she and others had been
infuriated by the way the dam's proponents had
justified the scheme by "lying" about the facts. She
quoted Li Boning, the chief advocate, as saying: "We
must be careful about the figures we cite since they
could become a bullet used by opponents."

   Critics say the dam-builders deliberately covered
up the number of people who would be displaced and how
they could be resettled.

   "It has always been our view that it is impossible
to relocate so many people," Ms Dai said. Proponents
have also turned out to be wrong about the cost of the
dam which, in 1990, was supposed to be 90 billion yuan
(HK$83.7 billion) and is now reported to be heading
past 200 billion yuan.

   In private conversations, Chinese officials have
told Western diplomats it will certainly end up
costing two, even three times as much. When the
project was approved in 1992, Li Peng , then premier,
confidently claimed China needed no outside help.

   But this year it was publicly admitted the state
was already running short of funds and must raise the
money abroad.

   Advocates also rejected opinion that the dam would
cause rapid silting and threaten an environmental
catastrophe.

   This week, the China Economic Times  said all
efforts to stop soil erosion in the upper reaches had
not only failed but the problem was getting worse.

    In 1991, Li Boning said only 725,000 people would
need to be resettled, although other experts talked of
1.8 million by 2012.

   Of the 725,000, half were peasants who would have
no problems because there was "upwards of 20 million
mu (1.3 million hectares) of undeveloped land" in the
region, he said.

  Trial projects had proved resettlement would be easy
and just 500,000 mu of reasonable quality land was all
that was required.

   Now Mr Zhu has admitted there was no such land for
the peasants, who will number more than one million.

   Li Boning had said peasants whose land would be
flooded could move up hills and on to terraces.

   Mr Zhu recognised this was impossible because the
land was too steep. He had banned building terraces on
slopes of more than 25 degrees because any steeper
would cause soil erosion, not only endangering the
reservoir but threatening worse floods downstream.

   "This is what we always said," said Ms Dai.

   The result was that the 550,000 people who must be
moved in the next stage of the project would have to
be given land in other provinces.

   Initial attempts to resettle displaced people in
provinces like Xinjiang, Hainan, Hunan and Henan had
been a failure.

   A retired official and long-term dam supporter
rejected criticism of the earlier plans.

   He said: "We can surely find one million mu of
proper land in the area and build terraces to grow
citrus trees and other crops. After all there is
nearly 20 million mu of land to choose from."

   Trials carried out over eight years had proved this
method was effective. He warned the alternative,
moving the displaced people elsewhere, had proved
disastrous in the past.

   "The lessons from reservoir dams on Sanmenxia,
Xinanjiang and Dangjiangkou is that large groups of
displaced people have, in the end, always returned to
their old homes."

   So far, the authorities in the Three Gorges area,
in Sichuan province, have managed to relocate only
150,000 people in six years since 1992.

   If Premier Zhu wants to move 550,000 people by
2003, when the reservoir waters rise 135 metres,
100,000 people a year will have to be relocated.

   In 1991, Li Boning said creating new jobs for
citizens of small towns that would be submerged would
be easy.

   But Mr Zhu also overturned this projection and said
industrial enterprises would not be moved and rebuilt
because most were bankrupt and their machinery was
outdated.