[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

dam-l LS: PR: Ogden Corp Barraged With Calls to Quit Maheshwar



PRESS RELEASE
APRIL 25, 2000

CONTACT:
Patrick McCully
Campaigns Director
International Rivers Network
Tel: 510-848-1155
Email: patrick@irn.org

OGDEN CORP. BARRAGED WITH CALLS URGING COMPANY TO WITHDRAW FROM 
NOTORIOUS INDIAN DAM

NY-based Ogden Corporation is today being barraged with calls, faxes 
and emails urging the company to withdraw from the controversial 
Maheshwar Dam on India's Narmada River. The 400 megawatt Maheshwar 
hydropower project is fiercely opposed by the Narmada Bachao Andolan 
(Save the Narmada Movement), which represents tens of thousands of 
local people, as well as by other Indian and international human 
rights and environment groups because of its social, environmental 
and economic impacts.

International Rivers Network (IRN) and Friends of the Narmada, an 
international coalition of activists fighting dams on the Narmada 
River, have organized "Barrage Ogden Day" as part of a long-term 
campaign against foreign involvement in destructive dams on the 
Narmada River.

"By supporting the Maheshwar Dam, Ogden is contributing to human 
rights abuses and the destruction of the livelihoods of tens of 
thousands of people. Both local people and their international 
supporters are determined that this dam will not be built. Ogden 
should cut its losses and get out now," says Patrick McCully, 
Campaigns Director of IRN.

The Maheshwar Dam would affect more than 35,000 farmers, wage 
laborers, fishers and crafts people in 61 villages and submerge about 
1,100 hectares of rich agricultural land. Independent investigations 
have found that resettlement planning for the project is totally 
inadequate and that no land is available for resettlement as required 
by law. Project opponents claim that power from the dam will be 
prohibitively expensive and that Indians will have to subsidize 
foreign involvement in the uneconomic project.

People affected by the dam are determined that they will never let it 
be built. Over the last two years, thousands of farming families have 
occupied the dam site nine times, barricaded all roads leading to the 
dam for three months, and held mass demonstrations and hunger strikes 
opposing the dam.

On March 23, Ogden signed a Memorandum of Intent to develop the 
project, as part of U.S. President Bill Clinton's state visit to 
India. Chicago firm Harza Engineering Company of Chicago has been 
contracted as a consultant to Ogden. The dam's serious financial 
risks and the intense opposition to it caused U.S. power utility 
PacifiCorp to back out of the project in 1998, and German utilities 
Bayernwerk and VEW Energie to pull out in April 1999.

Ogden Corporation is a conglomerate with interests in the airline 
services, entertainment, environmental and energy sectors. The 
company has no experience with large dam projects. Its current 
portfolio contains only six small hydroelectric dams (four in the US 
and two in Costa Rica) with an average generating capacity of about 
20 megawatts each.

Some of the company's ventures include the Wet 'n Wild Waterpark in 
Las Vegas, the
Iguazu Grand Hotel Resort & Casino in Brazil, and the expansion of 
Bogota's Eldorado International Airport. Ogden has been embroiled in 
controversy because of its promotion of waste incinerators and its 
blocking of efforts by some of its food service employees to 
unionize. Fortune magazine recently voted Ogden's board of directors 
as one of America's worst.

When Ogden's interest in the Maheshwar Dam was first reported in late 
1999, local people wrote to the company insisting that Ogden 
representatives should visit the affected villages before deciding on 
their investment. In February 2000, nearly 300 elected 
representatives of the affected area sent Ogden a resolution opposing 
the project.

The only encounter between Ogden and affected people occurred two 
days after the Memorandum of Intent was signed. Ogden Vice President 
Kent Burton was helicoptered into the damsite where he encountered 
four villagers who had forced their way past security officials to 
speak to him. Burton later tried to visit one of the affected 
villages and was unable to get out of his car because it was 
surrounded by angry villagers.

Despite this hostile reaction, Ogden has said that the project 
"offers significant benefits to the people of the region" who are 
"voicing their support in increasing numbers and are encouraging us 
to move toward completion as rapidly as possible."

For more information, go to www.narmada.org or www.irn.org or contact

Patrick McCully, International Rivers Network, California, US, +1
510-848-1155 (w) +1 510-528-2930 (h) or patrick@irn.org

Venu Govindu, Friends of the Narmada, New Jersey, US, +1 609-799-5907 (h)
+1 609-951-2823 (w) or venu@narmada.org

Chittaroopa Palit, Narmada Bachao Andolan, Badwani, Madhya Pradesh, +91-272
9022464 or nobigdam@bom4.vsnl.net.in

Himanshu Thakkar, South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People, India, +91
11 748 4654 or cwaterp@del3.vsnl.net.in

International Rivers Network (IRN) is a US-based nongovernmental 
organization which supports local communities working to protect 
their rivers and watersheds. IRN works to halt destructive river 
development projects, and to encourage equitable and sustainable 
methods of meeting needs for water, energy and flood management.