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dam-l LS: Articles on the need for improved decision-making, assessment, transparencyregarding dams
This email contains the following articles.
1) Big dams: a fresh approach, The Hindu, Sept. 20. 1999
2) Misleading Facts, Indian Express, Sept. 20, 1999
3) Damming evidence, The Hindu, Sept. 19, 1999
----------------------------
Big dams: a fresh approach
The Hindu, Sept. 20. 1999
By Amulya K. N. Reddy
A NEW perspective is needed for decision-making on large dams. The
decision-making agenda will focus on minimising environment- development
conflicts. Indeed, this approach would be appropriate not just for large
dams but for all mega-projects as well.
The ``developers'' (Government or private sector) must start with a clear
statement of the project objective. They must describe upfront and
quantitatively the extra infrastructure (kWh of electricity, cubic metres
of water, passenger km of transport, etc.) that they propose to provide.
Then they must provide a comprehensive listing of all the options for
achieving the objective. These must include modifications of the project
(e.g., lowering a dam height), alternative centralised options (e.g. pumped
storage schemes in existing large hydroelectric reservoirs) as well
decentralised options (e.g., small irrigation/hydel projects). And apart
from supply-side expansion options, demand-side management and saving
options (e.g., more efficient motors or drip irrigation) must be included
because output saved is equivalent to inputs generated.
A mega-project can be replaced with a mix of mini alternatives. What
matters is whether the mix provides the same services (e.g., million kWh of
electricity) as the mega-project. When the ``developers'' are backed by
abundant monetary and personnel resources, it is callous of them to ask the
project critics to come up with alternatives. The listing of alternatives
should be their responsibility, not that of the critics.
Since a comparison is being made of different options for providing the
same benefit, e.g., kWh of electricity or cubic metres of water, what is
required next is a comparative costing of options. But this computation
must not be restricted to the initial costs thereby ignoring the annual
costs throughout the entire life of the option. Apart from the usual items
that appear in the balance sheets of the ``developer'', there are costs
which are borne by society - the so-called
externalities such as environmental degradation and public health bills.
These must be internalised, not ignored. Thus, the real costs including
environmental costs must be considered. For example, the costs of
rehabilitation of project-affected persons and compensatory afforestation
must be included in the costs of a hydroelectric dam. Despite this effort,
there may still be unquantifiables, e.g., the costs of a well-knit
community being scattered. These must be made explicit, not swept under the
carpet.
The distribution of benefits among different sections of society and among
different regions and, in particular, the gender distribution of benefits
must be revealed and clarified prior to project approval. All these issues
of distribution, equity and access must be explicitly treated in public
presentations. Equity Impact Assessments (EqIAs) are imperative.
The choice among these various possibilities must be based on a rational
procedure such as least-cost planning. This consists of ranking all options
on the basis of the real costs. The cheapest option is taken as the first
element/component of the mix with a certain potential for contributing to
the desired infrastructural output goal. Then, the next expensive option is
taken. This way one can identify a least-cost mix that will provide the
required output.
To become part of the least-cost mix, a mega-project has to earn its right
on grounds of real costs. If factors such as national security are invoked
in favour of options which would lose on real cost grounds, then these
considerations must be made public.
Unfortunately, certain options are backed by vested interests exerting
pressure. For example, due to the corruption factor (``Mr. Ten per cent''),
the more gigantic a project, the bigger the profit it yields and the larger
the commission it provides. No wonder, there are powerful
politician-bureaucrat-engineer- contractor lobbies behind large
construction projects. Strangely, the proponents of big dams have
maintained a silence on the corruption issue.
The best safeguard against the identification of the least-cost mix being
highjacked by vested interests is popular participation and democratic
decision-making in the process. Infrastructural projects are too important
to be left solely to the Government and its experts or even to the private
sector. The experience of North America and Western Europe is clear - the
public interest and civil society, rather than industry and the Government,
have played a key role in protecting the environment by providing the vital
checks and balances. The final step is the democratic approval of the
identified least-cost mix of options selected from the list consisting of
the developer's pet option and the various alternatives.
The information required for decision-making on projects must be widely and
easily available. A modern way of achieving universally accessible
information is to create a website for the process. With the proliferation
of powerful PCs, what used to be the preserve of a few experts with access
to mainframe computers in organisations like the Planning Commission has
now become trivial for large numbers of people in academic and non-
governmental organisations. All these people can verify and cross-check the
assumptions, estimates and computations of the experts. So, complete
transparency is vital.
Quite clearly, the above agenda involves a major change in the rules of the
game. Institutional changes are necessary. For instance, public hearings
(where the project developers argue their case) are essential. Also, there
must be the involvement of all stakeholders including project-affected and
project-excluded persons.
The above perspective enables a listing of the sins of omission and
commission of the Sardar Sarovar Project (SSP) and other Narmada Valley
projects. There was no prior public disclosure of the services to be
delivered. Provision of drinking water seems to have been a populist
after-thought. There was no listing of alternatives by the Government and
the project developers. The SSP (like the other projects) was not the one
and only solution.
It is to the credit of the Narmada Bachao Andolan that it encouraged and
developed alternatives. Having been encouraged by it to make a presentation
to the Planning Commission on alternatives to the electrical component of
the SSP, I am astonished that Ms. Gail Omvedt accused the NBA of being
uninterested in alternatives. The NBA even organised a workshop at which
experts from different fields discussed various alternatives to the SSP.
But independent analysts have found it difficult to obtain information from
the developers. No effort has been made by the developers to carry out the
least-cost planning and justify the projects as the most cost-effective of
all the alternatives. There is no EqIA. In fact, it is the debate generated
by the NBA that has provided these revelations.
The SSP seems guilty on all counts. If it were offering itself as a new
project, it would have to compete with the alternatives. Unfortunately, it
is not a clean sheet. In this muddied situation, there has to be a
comparison of three options: (1) continue with the project as conceived,
(2) repair/modify it and (3) scrap and replace it. The relative real costs
of these three options have to be evaluated.
The debate initiated by the NBA is not over. It must continue with the mass
mobilising skills of Ms. Medha Patkar, the saintly efforts of Baba Amte,
the literary power of Ms. Arundhati Roy and their combined moral force
backed by the popular movements. And hopefully the supporters of the SSP
will come up with less invective and debating points and more hardcore
quantitative analysis showing how the cost-effectiveness of the already-
built big dams is greater than that of the alternatives that were never
considered.
(The writer is President, International Energy Initiative, Bangalore.)
===================================
Misleading Facts
Girish Sant
Indian Express, Sept. 20, 1999
When disadvantaged sections oppose actions by the mainstream, the usual
response is to negate, undermine or misrepresent the arguments/objections
raised. Sunil Jain's article that appeared in these columns on Sept 6 is an
example of this. A few examples:
Take the case of CFLs. Author has arrived at a cost of Rs 134 crore per MW
saved. Each CFL (that costs about Rs 400) can save 25 to 30 Watt. So, as
per him, the replacement of ordinary bulb by CFL would cost Rs 33,500 to
40,000!
The author is referring to solar PV technology while quoting cost of Rs 40
crore/MW. These costs are dramatically falling. But no serious literature
on alternatives talks about PV as alternative for MW scale plants. While
calculating land requirement, one must remember that solar panels are put
on the house roofs and do not need separate land allocation.
Similarly the land used for windmills can be put for productive use such as
grazing.
The article also talks about wind power plants drawing more power,
duringstartup, from the grid then they generate. But any power engineer
would tell him that this is true for most power plants. The lead box of the
article omits the words `during startup' and hence implies that windmills
are net consumers of energy rather than generators of energy!
The article also quotes figures for land required per unit storage area for
small and large dams and says this should be the basis of comparison. It is
wrong. What matters is the land used per unit of water utilized in fields.
The canal systems of large projects routinely loose over half of water
during transit. These water delivery systems are highly bureaucratic and
unreliable. If these factors were accounted for, the numbers quoted by
author would substantially change.
For over a decade, the advocates of alternative energy planning are saying
that all options of energy saving and
generation should be compared on equal footing. These should be ranked as
per the increasing costs and we should opt for the least cost mix so asto
meet our energy demand. I would like to point out the result of Maharashtra
least-cost power plan done by us at Prayas (6 yrs ago). The study
considered 16 different options of saving and generation (without wind or
solar PV). It was seen that a least-cost mix of these options would reduce
dependence on large projects by as much as half while reducing the
life-cycle costs by one third.
Probably not understanding these intricacies, as well as technical and
economic details; the author ends up advocating business ``as usual''
practices. Such uninformed and biased views not only make injustice to the
demands of the dam affected, but also affects the interests of society at
large as they create barriers in moving towards a more efficient economy.
As per the official figures, country needs to add 8,000 MW power stations
each year. If a quarter of this is to be hydel, it implies construction of
one SSP and one Maheshar dam combined - each year! Despite such a serious
issue, the five year plans do not carryeven estimate of the likely number
of affected people or the land required for
resettlement, leave aside having a details (and workable) plan to ensure
alternative livelihoods for people to be displaced.
The author is a member of Advisory Committee to Central Electricity
Regulatory Commission
Copyright © 1999 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.
==================================
Damming evidence
The Hindu, Sept. 19, 1999
As world demands for energy rise, there is an urgent necessity to
understand the problems of environmental damage and dislocation of people
associated with dams around the world. PRITHI NAMBIAR speaks of the need
for independent assessment and transparency in debating the value of dams.
EARLIER in the year, World Water Day saw the World Wide Fund for Nature
release its international policy on dams for Australia. A tough policy
which says RNo more dams in AustraliaS. WWF issued a press statement
pointing out that many of the dams in Australia, and specifically in the
states of New South Wales and Queensland, were, at best not essential, and
at worst responsible for creating severe environmental damage. Describing
state policy on Dams as being Rsimply madS, a spokesman for the
organisation felt that in view of the widespread damage caused by existing
irrigation networks P over 1.3 million hectares of land is expected to be
lost due to salinisation over the next 40 years, any fresh proposal for
dams must be treated with suspicion. However the Governments of the Eastern
Australian states of New South Wales and Queensland, knowing that five
million hectares of land is at risk from salinisation, have yet gone ahead
with proposing two more major dams in the region. The mismanagement of
water resources is as big a problem in Australia as anywhere else, leading
to major ecological hazards such as the dying Coorong wetlands where a
progressively larger proportion of river water gets diverted before the
river reaches the sea, the earlier logic being that all freshwater must be
consumed before it discharges into the sea. It is only recently that the
tragedy of dying wetlands, deltas and coastal zones has begun to catch the
eye of the public. However, governments here as elsewhere in the world are
still loath to acknowledge the fact, that big projects are not problem
solvers, infact they are often problem creators and it is generally the
scale that is the problem.
Starting with the fact that dams disrupt the natural flow of water and
therefore impact negatively on natural ecosystems, dams have displaced
people in a manner that has opened up often irreconcilable differences over
resettlement and rehabilitation especially in developing countries with
large populations and limited alternative sites for the resettlement of
displaced people. The independent World Commission on Dams (WCD) was born
in February 1998 out of the need to resolve the polarisation that seemed to
have occurred on the issue of dams in a way that would establish
international standards on the planning, construction and operation of
dams.
There is a tremendous urgency to better understand the problems associated
with large dams as the world demand for water, food and energy soars. The
World Energy Council has estimated that energy demands would double between
1990 and 2020, a demand erupting most forcefully from the developing
countries where per capita consumption levels have not peaked as a result
of low income and lack of infrastructure. It is consequently expected that
a number of developing countries will make those critical moves towards
committing themselves to major investments in infrastructure in the next
couple of decades.
Categorising countries of the world on the basis of a descending scale of
exploitation of national potential for hydroelectric and irrigation schemes
into three groups, the policy seeks to not only discourage group I nations
from building more dams but to actually dismantle existing ones in an
attempt to reclaim and revive wetland areas and agricultural ecosystems.
The three stage policy accordingly keeps the possibility of dams open to
countries with major energy needs strictly conditional on the environmental
impact assessments (EIA) and all possible remedial measures that would
limit the damage caused by them.
However, policy even if international, must filter down to the local and in
the doing must keep from being altered beyond recognition. Armed with a
strong mandate and a membership that included among others, activists like
Medha Patkar, the WCD became something of a non starter in the context of
major dam debates like those of the Narmada. While the international
discussion paper released by WWF bristles with disclaimers that seek to
establish objectivity, the fact that there is an unequivocal position on
the value and virtue of dams is also equally evident from the report and
the surrounding publicity released around it. The danger of taking activism
on board has been to forsake all possibility of a middle ground in a world
where shades of grey predominate. And this has proved costly. The outright
hostility to the WCD which aborted its India visit and let it to reconsider
its policy in a way that straight away recognises its ineffectiveness in
country specific or dam specific contexts, was an important lesson but one
that was learned too late. A WCD that was less weighted with opinion may
have had a valuable opportunity to assess and mould the situation. A
technical commission with an apolitical front could have had a foot in the
door. But the India incident blew its cover and damaged its credibility.
While there is much to be said for establishing a framework of
methodologies and tools for assessment of options and sets of international
criteria and guidelines to provide decision support, these have gone the
way of all fine print with positions remaining largely unaltered. The
processes of so called decision making have instead become more
sophisticated requiring more resources, more information. But when
information required to make such analysis effective is either not current
or accurate, the effectiveness of these sophisticated digestors become
highly questionable as indeed does the process itself. There is now a need
for independent review and assessment of technical processes in a manner
that simplifies and makes transparent the major conclusions and assesses
the methodology of what is being attempted. Such a system of independent
review has yet to develop in countries that sorely need them.
The fact that hydroelectricity is not clean or safe is something that is
only just beginning to dawn on some sections of the public. The need for
energy is clearly perceived universally. The need for water is even more
so. In fact it is something that evokes the kind of mass hysteria and
divisiveness that religion inspires. What then are the arguments for not
building these dams?
Why is hydro electricity not clean or green? Recent studies suggest that
greenhouse gas emissions (CO2 and CH4) produced during the bacterial
decomposition of flooded peat and forest biomass could be substantial in
the case of large reservoirs as has been evident from early data relating
to hydro-electric reservoirs in Canada. It is said that the Balbina dam in
Brazil had 26 times more impact on global warming than emissions from an
equivalent coal fired station. The disturbance caused by the construction
of a catchment area and the dam and its related components, the tremendous
loss of biodiversity, displacement of people, the erasing of their cultural
history and in some cases their distinctive identity caused by inundation
of fertile cropland and ancient forests have been recorded in the cases of
large dams around the world. The Balbina dam in Brazil inundated an area of
2750 square kms, the Srisailam project flooded 43,300 ha of farmland taking
away the livelihood of 100,000 displaced farmers. And this is hardly the
only instance where dams have impacted India.
What are the other problems with hydropower? Water quality in the
reservoirs is affected by the decomposition of vegetation that produces
noxious gases that are harmful to aquatic life. Still water leads to low
oxygen in the lower depths of reservoirs making it uninhabitable for fish.
Mercury contamination occurs as it leaches into the water from rocks and
soil, water weeds proliferate in stretches of stagnant water causing oxygen
and water loss. Silt accumulation leading to heavy sedimentation actually
reduces the capacity and efficiency of dams drastically over the years.
Silt gets deposited in entirely the wrong places ending up clogging
machinery behind the walls of the dam rather than along coastal areas which
face erosion as a consequence of this diversion of essential silt. Not only
are the lands deprived of fertility, they are also exposed to life
threatening floods and cyclones. While initially dam reservoirs seem to
provide opportunities for freshwater fisheries, this is often not found
sustainable for water quality reasons. Not enough is understood about the
dynamics of the reservoir based freshwater fisheries industry.
The possibility of dam bursts, landslips and seismic activities are often
put in the acts of God category and are rarely considered avoidable
although dam disasters have caused tremendous destruction in the past. Who
has forgotten the Morvi dam disaster which killed 10,000 and more? Apart
from the risk in the structure of the dam walls, there are serious
instabilities caused by the ecological impact of the dam. The erosion in
upstream areas due to the loss of vegetation and top soil makes landslides
a regular feature. Seismicity is known to become a major risk where large
bodies of water have been impounded.
The major changes caused by damming a river can be compared to the
diversion of the circulatory system, where blood pools in areas, cutting
off life from some parts and congesting others. The dangers of altering an
ecosystem which has fallen into stability over time are rarely understood.
The dams, irrigation systems and their associated engineering structures
cause drastic changes to the ecology and management of floodplains and
other wetlands, reducing or eliminating downstream flooding cycles,
altering water chemistry, discharge and sediment behaviour and blocking and
interrupting the migration of fish. The new bodies of open water they
create have their own ecological systems that differ from previously
existing systems.
New areas of concern are not only the contribution of greenhouse gas
emissions but the role of dams in the global rise of sea levels. The loss
of shoreline and fluvial sediments which are being diverted from coastal
delta areas is contributing to the inundation of these low lying areas by
the sea. In Bangladesh for example it is expected that 18 per cent of the
land would be under water by 2050 with 209 cm increase in sea levels.
These are serious problems but why has there been no thought paid to the
essentially destructive nature of the developmental model which we are
unable to abandon? Why is it that developed nations are still facing
problems with assimilating clear evidence of the undesirability of allowing
the market to vacuum in nature and its resources at a rate impossible to
sustain? It is still hard to understand that the issue is actually survival
and not the intellectually remote term RsustainabilityS. The term survival
is still seen as the language of green flag waving activism with no place
in boardrooms or political platforms.
This is the consequence of the original pioneering process that has driven
modern civilisation based on the drastic reordering of nature for a single
purpose: consumption or the satisfaction of human needs and wants. Which
would have been understandable if needs were limited but human needs and
wants are not.
This primary drive clearly continues to ensure the skewing of the system in
such a way that self interest and the need to secure resources prevent its
reorientation even in the light of scientific evidence pouring in from all
affected sectors. The fact that this situation exists all over the world is
not unknown but public awareness and participation in decisionmaking
processes is still the only way to ensure that the interests of the
majority are served. The EIA was one of the evaluative tools that sought to
make this possible. But there have been difficulties with this.
Despite the fact that statistics and related information are being
extensively recorded, the manner in which this information is being
interpreted to minimise socio-ecological costs is something that makes
these evaluation processes suspect. It is important to understand the
pressures that work the system. The EIA is commissioned and paid for by the
company that requires it. It is not difficult to understand why a report
produced in such circumstances would scarcely seek to shoot itself in the
foot. What often goes on is extensive processing of information and
presentation of facts that gloss over the inadequacies and build on the
advantages. Dissimulation is now an art and an industry. Add to this the
fact that the technicality of the report does not make it easy for the
public to understand or analyse the facts or assess the methodogy that has
been used. This is assuming that the reports are easily available which is
hardly the case.
But what are the alternatives? Small dams? Small dams are normally those
that are under 15 metres high, but they remain debatable options. Micro
hydropower projects sometimes fall victim to the same problems that large
dams do if they are not planned properly. In Laos, bad planning had caused
two successive dam bursts due to poor understanding of the flooding cycles
and the rainfall patterns. A series of small dams may not create energy
more efficiently than large dams do. The answers are not readily available.
And mankind has been used to damming rivers for centuries from what we know
of the earliest civilisations of the world. The first large modern dam was
built in Britain in 1787 and all newly independent nations including India
moved fast and eagerly to secure the Rcommanding heightsS of the economy by
sanctioning mega hydro projects. From the happy days of the Fifties and
Sixties and even today although much water has flowed under the bridge, the
mega dam continues to be seen as a symbol of progress, of manUs
supremacy over nature, of prosperity and of pride. Development aid
programmes like those of CanadaUs favoured large dam projects under tied
aid agreements that exported their water development expertise to
developing nations. In the Seventies some notice was taken of the
widespread damaged caused to the landscape by dams. In the Eighties the
socio-economic costs of large dams began to be recorded across the world.
But it was only in the Nineties that social impact of the dams brought
ecological and economic arguments to the fore as marginalised and displaced
communities found their voice in the political arena. However the large dam
era is yet to end as politicians still push the big dam for its strategic
value as a politically attractive statement of commitment to progress. The
emotive argument of water is a powerful vote puller. The magic of
development in terms of individual material prosperity is too strong to
resist.
And this is true even of countries like Australia where the developmental
pull of the dam is still strong as plans are underway to build two more.
The battle for water resources among pastoral, agricultural and industrial
users is stiff because the needs are excessive as all resource use is large
scale. Even though nearly 70 per cent of the water in the Murray-Darling
basin, a major river basin in eastern Australia has already been diverted
for commercial use, the province of Queensland has made the decision to
build a large dam in the headwaters of the same basin. Almost every major
river in western New South Wales has a dam on it. The extensive
redistribution of the waters of the rivers has resulted in some wetlands
drying up almost totally while others like the wetlandsalong the Murray
river are inundated permanently destroying spectacular ancient trees like
the redgums. The policy on dams seeks to move for a no dams policy for
nations that have reached full exploitation levels. This would introduce
flexibility into an international system by allowing some nations to build
those absolutely essential dams albeit very reluctantly and after
fulfilling a battery of prerequisites. WWF sees Australia as a developed
nation with a responsibility to Rstop behaving like a developing nationS.
Australia, therefore, would need to not only not build any more dams but to
retrofit existing ones. In the U.S., dams are being removed to enable the
return of salmon and migratory species and return rivers to their original
pattern of flow. Australia is being urged to follow that example to restore
the natural variability of river systems and the thermal quality of its
water to protect and restore its native bio-diversity. Salinisation of
extensive stretches of soil as well as the poisoning of impounded water by
toxic blue green algae is making stored water unsafe for drinking across
three quarters of dams in New South Wales.
Linked to this debate is the issue of privatisation of the energy industry
as it has been seen that privatisation will lead to further ecological
degradation. The most serious issue still remains to be the active testing
and development of alternatives to dam technology which the developed world
needs to invest in before a more viable alternative can be adopted. It is
important for nations around the world to recognise that ecosystem
sustainability is essential to the maintenance of stable growth and
productivity. If this were accepted then it would be easier to prioritise
ecosystem health and adjust technologies appropriately. If countries need
to be motivated into foregoing energy options, it is suggested that direct
monetary compensation or technological assistance be provided for those
nations that have protected their unique spaces and species by raising
levies on hydropower; Through constituting an International River Fund to
support conservation and rehabilitation of major river systems of the
world; Through developing guidelines to restore the ecological health of
disrupted wetland ecosystems and persuade all countries to internalise all
environmental costs which are today better known in order to get users of
these services to pay for them. However the internalisation of ecological
costs or even of all cost into the price of services that have
traditionally been regarded as essential services is a tremendously
politically unattractive solution. Governments will need to look at
alternatives more seriously and international development aid policy that
supports sustainable technology is the only way to point nations in the
right direction.
Further information is now becoming available relating to the dying utility
of the large and celebrated dams of the world like the Aswan Dam which is
causing the coastline to recede, the decline of fisheries and a rising
water table that is endangering the area. The
displacement effects and the large scale destruction caused by dams have
been disguised to some extent by the sheets of water and the hum of energy.
But now rising above the spray of water is the spectre of human error, the
voices of submerged identities and cultures of the past and the restless
spirits of lost forests and wildlife.
The author is Programme Coordinator of Media based Initiatives for
Sustainable Development at the Centre for Environment Education. She is
currently based in Sydney, Australia.