Friends I wrote something on the Dam issue and the North East, which is posted below, if it gives any light.
Thanks Rajen On the Lower Subansiri and Other Hydro-Power Projects in North East India The Rs 7,000-crore Lower Subansiri Project is a 116 m high concrete gravity dam hydro-power generation project. Any dam which is 15 meters high, (or between 5 and 15 meters and with a reservoir capacity of at least 3 million cubic meters) is considered a big dam. As such the LSP is a very big dam. From the information made public so far by NHPC, it is not a multi purpose project for the benefits of the local people. The purpose of the project is not flood control or irrigation but purely to generate hydro-power of 2000MW with a surface power house to accommodate 8 units of Francis turbines of 250 MW capacities each. As such, LSP is not a Run of the River (RoR) hydro power project, and there is nothing green about the 116 meter high dam. It is the largest hydro-power generation project in India. It is a mega project to squeeze every watt of hydro-power from the river Subansiri for India with hardly any benefits to the local people. The present world wisdom is that short the term economic benefits that big dams bring, always come at a staggering cost of ecologically fragmented and damaged rivers, and downstream victims of destroyed fisheries and impounded sediments and many others. In addition, North East India lies in the Himalayan region which is a geologically young and seismically sensitive and active region. In fact, the Eastern Arunachal Pradesh belongs to major antiformal tectonic unit called Eastern Syntax which is composed of two or three major thrust sheets. It is predicted that there may be major earthquakes in the region of magnitude 9 or higher in near future. There are also clear and urgent signs of imminent threat from climate change in the form of rapidly melting glaciers. We therefore need to be extremely careful not to build any dam in the region without a thorough and proper investigation of all the technical and environmental data and issues involved. Seismically, LSP is supposedly being designed only for 8.5 magnitude of earthquake. This itself seems to be gross under design. This implies that any earthquake higher than 8.5 will cause great devastation to the region. It is general information that the last Assam 1950 earthquake was of magnitude 8.7. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950_Medog_earthquake). Today, every large dam may invariably be connected to some man made earthquakes. Were such a catastrophe to occur, the potentially resulting dam-break would submerge numerous villages downstream and will cause irreversible damage to the downstream area without proper mitigation. People still remember the great devastation done by the very river Subansiri during the great earthquake of 1950. In addition following are some real concerns; 1) The main concern is that the EIA report is not available for easy public review. As such proper evaluation is not possible to ensure that environmental consequences of the project have been identified and assessed before authorization is given. It is surprising that NHPC is building India's largest hydroelectric project with very little public disclosure of design as well as other reports, and without any downstream impact study. NHPC must come out with all facts and figures for such a mega project for easy public access 2) The soil of the region is young and soft. On top of that, it has been now rumored that, the original foundation depth of 17 meters has recently been reduced by NHPC to 9 meters. This raises additional questions of safety of the dam. According to the local expert committee, the spillway of the dam is under designed against which there is no proper explanation from NHPC. 3) Overall, there are concerns that the dam is designed or under designed with in inadequate data without any concerns for downstream people Over all, we donot need to design such a high dam in this location. A smaller dam may be more appropriate as suggested by the local expert committee. 4) On top of it, there are persistent reports that China is building its own dam on the same river, the upper Brahmaputra. If this correct, this LSP dam will be designed on inadequate data and will be a huge waste of public money. The handling of the LSP without consideration for the benefits of the local public, besides lack of transparency in design, shows the trend of working for such other projects in the whole of North East India. It has been reported that LSP is just the beginning and that there are total more than 160 additional hydro-power projects in the pipeline for the exploitation from North East India. One of the problems is that many a times, people outside of the North East are suggesting solutions without understanding the socio economic impacts. Many of these matters are decided by people from outside who have limited understanding of the issues or dimensions involved. As such, the position of the North East Indians is very precarious in the sense that total population of the region is only 4% of India’s total, and a simple democratic rule against majority rest of Indians does not work here. To make matters worse, at present, the North East Indians are divided among themselves, and each state and sub-state is busy trying to get a piece of the big and booming Indian pie, disregarding the long term environmental consequences or any concerns for its neighbors. What the people of North East India need from India, is a Thoreau-Gandhian type of democracy where the voice of the minority will be heard with a greater human conscience. This is the greatest challenge facing the North East Indians today. In the meantime, in order to alleviate the situation, the authorities should not only form expert technical committees but also form socio-economic groups from local people to evaluate the merit of each and every hydro-electric projects of North East India. With the lure of cheap electricity and false promise of development, recently all the developing countries are beginning to exploit their hydropower potential with a new-found enthusiasm. As such all are embarking on massive hydroelectricity schemes to exploit to the very full the energy of their rivers. In this, China is taking the lead, and countries like India are following. However, for a democratic country like India, all democratic processes need to be followed with full transparencies to alleviate all ecological and humanitarian concerns and to justify any projects. Besides, for an under developed region like the North East India which is rich in natural resources, the local people must be convinced that the proposed projects will really bring them concrete benefits. Rajen Barua 22506 Stormcroft Lane Houston, Texas Dec 9, 2010 > Date: Sun, 19 Dec 2010 08:27:21 +0530 > From: [email protected] > To: [email protected] > Subject: Re: [Assam] Clarion call to the Premiers of China and India :Please > do not obstruct the free flowing Brahmaputra > > > > Chandan Da: Thanks for your views on this point. For me, it is a very > balanced and reasonable view. > > These are issues that are not easy to get a good handle on Uttam. I don't > necessarily believe ANY govt.'s claims on such matters. They are, at best, > half-truths. > > Having said that, if we look at the Chinese acknowledgement that they are > making a "run-of-the-river" hydropower "tunnel", it does NOT > mean "diverting" the river away some place else. What it means is that they > are diverting the water to run thru a tunnel and back into the river, while > generating power during the run thru the tunnel. But even here can be > half-truths and misleading claims, like there are in the Lower Subansiri > HEP project, which India claims to be a "run-of-the-river" HEP project and > thus claiming there will be no reduction of water-flow. But what India does > not > tell you, unless challenged, is that: > > The Subansiri water will be impounded daily for about 20 hours, to build up > the height of the water column in the reservoir, so that they can generate > maximum power by releasing it for the remaining four hours in the evening. > > Now, the claim that it does not affect the total flow of water may be > technically true. But the fact that every evening the Subansiri will flood > and most of the day will run dry, > will have a huge impact on the lives of the people downstream and a wholesale > destruction of the habitat of all living things that have adapted to living > in and with the river over millenia. > > And if you look into the impact of sudden release of massive amounts of water > to prevent a dam collapse after a sudden spurt in rainfall or a cloudburst, > like has been done by power generators in every dam in the NE in recent > decades, it could mean a calamity of unprecedented proportions, not just for > those in the Subansiri valley, but much farther downstream on the Brahmaputra > valley even. > > Now looking back on the Tsangpo damming in Tibet, surely it will impact flow > downstream during the dry season, but not like it would be if it were to be > diverted AWAY from the river ( for irrigation or driniking water etc.) and > not in the total flow of the Brahmaputra river. Because the Brahmaputra flow > is a > result of not just Tsangpo alone, it also has Lohit and Dibang ( in the dry > season) that contribute snowmelt waters, even though to a lesser extent than > the Tsangpo. > > If the snowmelt water continues to reduce as is predicted, the Tibetan > hydropower project could become dysfunctional. So the Chinese could impound > the water in a reservoir to use it as it sees fit. THAT would be when it will > seriously impact the Brahmaputra in the dry season. But during the wet > season, > the Brahmaputra gets its flow from rainfall south of the Himalayas and thus > would not feel the impact of a small Chinese impoundment in Tibet. But that > too could change if China begins to build a series of dams on the Tsangpo all > the way down to near the border at Arunachal. That could have very serious > impact on the Brahmaputra. > > > That is just ONE aspect of the issues. THere are many more. > > > > Uttam Kumar Borthakur > > _______________________________________________ > assam mailing list > [email protected] > http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org _______________________________________________ assam mailing list [email protected] http://assamnet.org/mailman/listinfo/assam_assamnet.org
