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Three Gorges Dam’s Flood-Control Function Questioned

By admin in July 25th 2010   No Comment »
Filed Under China, disaster, erosion, flooding, food security, hydropower, infrastructure, monsoon, rivers, world water     Tags: , , , , , ,      

By Hsin-Yi Lin for Epoch Times

Severe flooding in southern China has put in question the flood-control and other functions of China’s most ambitious, costliest, and controversial water-control project—the Three Gorges Dam.

At 8 a.m. on July 20, China’s Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River had the highest peak flow since its completion. Water flowed into the dam at 70,000 cubic meters per second. Nine of the dam’s discharge channels were opened to release the floodwater from upstream to downstream of the dam.

Official media claimed that the Three Gorges Dam has stood up to its biggest flood-control test since completion, as the flow on the river’s upper reaches tops 70,000 cubic meters per second—20,000 cubic meters more than the flow during the 1998 floods that killed 4,150 people.

However, the “flood-control test” is far from over yet, as some of the already flood-stricken areas in the lower reaches of the dam are still fighting floodwaters.

Due to the floodwater released from the Three Gorges Dam and the torrential rains, the water level in the downstream Yangtze River in Hubei Province rose above the alert level along 628 miles of dikes on July 22. The water level of five major lakes and 603 dams in Hubei Province were also above the flood level, Wuhan Morning Post reported on July 23.

In another lower reach of the Yangtze River, a 300- to 500-meter-long (0.2 to 0.3 mile) stretch of riverbank in Mianchuan Island, (Jiangzhou Township, Jiujiang City, Jiangxi Province) collapsed on July 18 due to the rising Yangtze River.

On July 23 state-run media reported that the flooding on Mianchuan Island was so severe that residents feared a repeat of the massive floods of 1998 when the flood discharge from the Three Gorges Dam reached Jiujiang City on July 25. In the 1998 flood, the dikes in Jiangzhou Township breached, and many people had to evacuate the area. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/146455.stm)

As of July 21, at least 701 people have died and 347 are missing due to flooding in southern China, according to official reports.

A villager in Jiangxin Village on Mianchuan Island told an Epoch Times reporter on July 18 that most farmland close to the big dikes had been devoured by flood waters, and he has lost all the crops he had planted for the year. He said he has been hit by floods for three years in a row, and this flood could be as bad as the one in 1998.

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New China floods feared as Yangtze swells

By paulstewart in July 23rd 2010   No Comment »
Filed Under China, disaster, flooding, hydropower, lake, monsoon, rivers, world water     Tags: , , ,      

by Peter Parks for AFP

CHONGQING, China (AFP) – China, already reeling from deadly floods, braced Friday for a potential new deluge on the Yangtze downstream from the huge Three Gorges Dam as its reservoir’s level hit a high for the year.

The warnings came as officials sought to dampen expectations that the dam could completely tame the swelling river amid the worst flooding in a decade, which has left more than 1,100 people dead or missing.

The Three Gorges reservoir’s water level reached its highest point in this year’s floods, the water resources ministry said, adding it hit the dam’s 158.8-metre mark Friday. State press reports put its maximum at 175 metres.

Huge amounts of water continued to thunder out of its massive spill-gates and the government of Jiangxi said the hard-hit eastern province downstream was at a “critical juncture” in flood control.

It ordered authorities to redouble flood prevention work along dozens of lakes and rivers already swollen by weeks of heavy rains.

“Over the next 20 to 30 days, the high water level of the Yangtze River’s Jiujiang section and Poyang Lake will continue. The flood situation is very grim,” the provincial government said in a statement.

Poyang Lake, China’s largest freshwater lake and linked to the Yangtze, is one of hundreds of major Chinese lakes and rivers whose water levels have exceeded their danger marks. Jiujiang is a city of about five million people.

Authorities elsewhere in the region issued similar warnings.

The state flood control authority said the toll from this year’s floods had risen to 742 dead and 367 missing.

Vice Water Resources Minister Liu Ning this week called the Three Gorges Dam — the world’s largest hydroelectric project — a “pillar” against new floods, but other officials began to emphasise its limits.

“The Three Gorges Dam is not a panacea,” Wei Shanzhong, deputy director of the Yangtze River Water Resources Commission, was quoted Friday by state media as saying.

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Large China oil spill threatens sea life, water

By admin in July 21st 2010   No Comment »
Filed Under China, biodiversity, disaster, flora and fauna, habitat, health, pollution, seawater     Tags: , , , , , , ,      

By CARA ANNA and YU BING for Associated Press

BEIJING – China’s largest reported oil spill emptied beaches along the Yellow Sea as its size doubled Wednesday, while cleanup efforts included straw mats and frazzled workers with little more than rubber gloves.

An official warned the spill posed a “severe threat” to sea life and water quality as China’s latest environmental crisis spread off the shores of Dalian, once named China’s most livable city.

One cleanup worker has drowned, his body coated in crude.

“I’ve been to a few bays today and discovered they were almost entirely covered with dark oil,” said Zhong Yu with environmental group Greenpeace China, who spent the day on a boat inspecting the spill.

“The oil is half-solid and half liquid and is as sticky as asphalt,” she told The Associated Press by telephone.

The oil had spread over 165 square miles (430 square kilometers) of water five days since a pipeline at the busy northeastern port exploded, hurting oil shipments from part of China’s strategic oil reserves to the rest of the country. Shipments remained reduced Wednesday.

State media has said no more oil is leaking into the sea, but the total amount of oil spilled is not yet clear.

Greenpeace China released photos Wednesday of inky beaches and of straw mats about 2 square meters (21 square feet) in size scattered on the sea, meant to absorb the oil.

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China floods ‘deadliest in a decade’

By admin in July 21st 2010   No Comment »
Filed Under China, dams, disaster, flooding, fresh water, hydropower, infrastructure, rivers          

DAN MARTIN for AFP

Flooding in China that has killed more than 700 people this year is the deadliest in a decade and is likely to worsen as the country gets deeper into typhoon season, the government warns.

However officials, in the first high-level media briefing on weeks of deadly flooding plaguing much of the country’s southern half, said a disaster on the scale of historic 1998 flooding on the Yangtze River would likely be averted.

A total of 701 people have died so far this year in flooding that has also left 347 people missing, Liu Ning, head of the country’s flood control authority and vice-minister of water resources, told reporters on Wednesday.

He said the annual rainy season would continue at least through August, and that more downpours were expected, further straining reservoirs and other water control projects, especially as the East Asian typhoon season has just begun.

“During this period there will be heavy rainfall and serious floods. The rainfall will continue,” Liu said.

He said meteorologists expected heavy rains could spread to northern China, possibly causing flooding along major rivers such as the Huai, Yellow and Songhua.

“In these rivers they haven’t seen major floods in many years and they are very likely to see some soon. So we must anticipate big disasters,” he said.

Liu said more than 230 rivers in the country had seen water levels rise beyond warning points, with two dozen exceeding historic highs.

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China disputes energy-use rank

By paulstewart in July 20th 2010   No Comment »
Filed Under China, dams, hydropower, infrastructure     Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,      

By Song Shengxia for Global Times

China is challenging the credibility of an International Energy Agency (IEA) report that branded the country the world’s top energy consumer, surpassing the United States, claiming that the estimation is inaccurate.

“The IEA’s data on China’s energy use is unreliable,” Zhou Xian, an official with the nation’s National Energy Administration (NEA), said at a press conference Tuesday. But Zhou conceded that the data could be used as a “reference.”

China consumed the equivalent of 2.25 billion tons of oil last year from sources such as coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear power and hydropower, about 4 percent more than the US’ 2.17 billion tons, a report released Monday by the IEA said, according to the Financial Times.

The newspaper quoted IEA’s chief economist, Fatih Birol, as saying, “In the year 2000, the US consumed twice as much energy as China; now, China consumes more than the US.”

The calculation ran contradictory to one seen in a report by China’s National Bureau of Statistics in February, which said China’s energy consumption in 2009 stood at 3.1 billion tons of standard coal, which is equivalent to about 2.13 billion tons of oil.

Hu Xiulian, a researcher at the Energy Research Institute with the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), told the Global Times that “The IEA data on China’s energy use is somehow not very accurate because the agency’s criteria for calculating the volume of energy use is different from that used by China.”

Zhou, of the NEA, said China has outpaced the US in new energy expansion, as the nation boasts the world’s largest hydropower capacity, solar power use for water heating, and nuclear power capacity under construction. It also has the world’s fastest growth of wind power generation, he said.

In a statement e-mailed to the Global Times Tuesday, the IEA said “China’s demand today would be even higher still if the government had not made such progress in reducing the energy intensity of the economy.”

A high energy intensity in terms of the economy indicates a high cost of converting energy into GDP.

The IEA went on to say that China’s unprecedented pace of economic development will require ever more energy, but it will transform living standards for its billion-plus citizens.

“There can be no moral grounds for expecting China to curb its economic growth simply because world energy demand is rising unacceptably,” the IEA statement added. “These are global problems to be tackled on a global basis.”

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Here’s the Salon post by AP

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Not what you bargained for: China’s massive water scheme delivering polluted goods

By paulstewart in July 15th 2010   No Comment »
Filed Under China, drinking water, infrastructure, irrigation, pollution, resettlement, rivers, water security, wetland, world water     Tags: , , , , , ,      

Brady Yauch for Probe International

While Chinese officials continue to forge ahead with an expensive scheme to move water from the Yangtze river in the south of the country to water-starved cities in the north, fears concerning its cleanliness are surfacing once again. According to a recent report, authorities are concerned over the poor water quality in the eastern leg of the South North Water Diversion (SNWD) project.

Vice-Minister of Environmental Protection Zhang Lijun said officials have shut down thousands of polluting paper mills and breweries in order to improve the quality of the eastern route’s water. The closures come under a State Council-approved directive requiring authorities to ensure that the water meets Grade 3, the minimum standard for drinking water.

But authorities have been struggling with the polluted water for more than eight years, before construction began on the eastern route.

The eastern route will involve a series of canals, connecting a number of river systems, and will channel water, predominantly, through Jiangsu and Shandong provinces—two provinces with the worst water pollution along the route—to Tianjin, on the border of Beijing Municipality. According to a Chinese government website, the eastern leg will span 1156 kilometres.

The director of the massive water project, Zhang Jiyao, says, “there is still a long way to go before local authorities transform the eastern route into a clean-water corridor and ensure the quality won’t decline again.”

Zhang added that, “key pollution-control facilities”—including manmade wetlands and pipelines connecting sewage treatment plants—are slated for the end of this year. According to the state-run China Daily, tests in the first quarter showed that water quality was at least Grade 3 in 23 trunk canals, or 66 percent of the sections planned for the eastern leg, south of the Yellow River.

In recent months, some local officials have expressed concern about the quality of water in the eastern leg, with the official in charge of the pollution treatment planning telling a local reporter, “from the beginning of the project, both Hebei province and Tianjin municipality said they didn’t want the water from the East Route because they were deeply concerned that it would be seriously polluted, especially the section within Shandong province.”

The entire SNWD involves three routes—eastern, central and western. Construction and relocation have started on the eastern and central routes, while the western leg is still in the planning stage.

In total, the project is expected to cost $62-billion—more than double the official estimates for the controversial Three Gorges dam—and will result in relocations of more than 330,000 citizens.

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A tale of two scientists

By paulstewart in September 24th 2008   No Comment »
Filed Under China, conflict, dams, hunger, hydropower, opinion, resettlement, social structures     Tags: , , , , , , ,      

06/27/2002 Kelly Haggart

Water engineer Zhang Guangdou’s support for China’s big dams ensured a smooth career, capped now by a million-yuan prize. Huang Wanli, meanwhile, spoke out about the projects’ risks, and endured harsh punishment.

Zhang Guangdou, a 90-year-old water engineer and professor at Beijing’s prestigious Qinghua University, was garlanded earlier this month with China’s most lucrative engineering prize. He won the Guanghua Award, worth one million yuan RMB (US$120,000), in recognition of his leading role in building several of the country’s big dams.

Forty years ago, Mr. Zhang played a key part in the Sanmenxia disaster on the Yellow River, when the reservoir of what was then China’s biggest dam silted up within two years of operation. Years later, he would also help design the controversial Three Gorges dam on the Yangtze River. His support for the large dams promoted by top Chinese leaders ensured a smooth career, capped now by the million-yuan prize. …

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Source site: Probe International

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