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Thought some
of you might want to see this piece about the latest on the Three Gorges dam in
China. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/06/09/international/asia/09CHIN.html excerpt from
Gains and Losses: “Many of those
resettled up to now — another 430,000 or more people must be moved from the
area before the project is completed in 2009 — are already hurting for good
land or jobs. For some longtime residents like Mr. Yang, nostalgia runs deep
for the lost ancient city and the nearby scenic gorges that will soon be a
little less deep and majestic. But not everyone is
unhappy. In a pattern repeated throughout China in this age of ebullient
construction, the quick and the connected are making out fine, while the slow,
the poor and the aged eat dust. A few miles up river
from the old town, a bright, new, high-rise Fengjie has sprung up in a
miraculous six years. It is already home to 80,000 people and starting to
bustle with characteristic Sichuanese color and cheer. Throughout the region,
some enterprising types have made fortunes off the billions being spent on new
towns, highways and bridges. Worried most about
their own livelihoods, few people here share Mr. Yang's concerns for the loss
of scenery or cultural relics or the effects on the environment downstream, and
few have thought about the pollution that many experts now see as the biggest
headache for the project. Already, with the river waters stilled for little
more than a week, a jump has been registered in E. coli, the bacterial marker
of sewage contamination.” |
