Equator HD TV today about a dam on the Yangtze River displacing millions and demolishing cities.

[madfloridian]

I had to get more information about it since our great informative news media is so good on world things. I found out it is called the Three Gorges Dam.

We watch this channel more than any other now. It went into the cities and showed the faces of the 2 million or so who were in forced migration to live in govenment housing. I sat there and cried for their loss, and for the damage that is bound to come to the environment. An example, a city of over 50,000 is being bulldozed to the ground. The rubble will be underwater.

I had a strange feeling at the seemingly easy acceptance of these people facing the destruction of all they had known, and the movement to the unknown. It is like they took it in stride, something that was inevitable. A chill went through me. I see many getting like that here in our country. Maybe the spirit to fight gets lost against the machine.

Equator's Voom cameras took a high definition tour through the gorges with the high peaks on the side of that part of the river that would disappear forever along with the cities beside it. It was breathtaking in its beauty.

There is not much at the Equator Channel website about it.

http://www.hifihdtv.ca/equator.php

And not much at the Voom site either.

http://www.voom.tv/equatorhd.html

I did find a webpage about the dam.

The show was from 2006.

Three Gorges Dam - The Great Wall Across the Yangtze

When completed, the $25 billion Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River will be the largest hydroelectric dam in the world. With an installed generating capacity of 18,200 MW, the dam will span more than two kilometers across, and tower 185 meters above, the world’s third longest river. Its reservoir will stretch over 600 kilometers upstream and force the displacement of more than 1.3 million people. Construction began in 1994 and is scheduled for completion by 2009. Construction on the dam itself was completed in May 2006.

..."The project has been plagued by massive corruption problems, spiraling costs, technological problems, human rights violations and resettlement difficulties. One million people have been displaced by the dam as of 2006; many are living under poor conditions with no recourse to address outstanding problems with compensation or resettlement. Said one peasant from Kai county, "We have been to the county government many times demanding officials to solve our problems, but they said this was almost impossible. They have threatened us with arrest if we appeal for help from higher government offices."

The environmental impacts of the project are extensive. The submergence of hundreds of factories, mines and waste dumps, and the presence of massive industrial centers upstream are creating serious pollution problems in the reservoir and the tributaries of the Yangtze. For five months every year when high water levels are lowered to accommodate the summer floods, a festering bog of effluent, silt, industrial pollutants and rubbish will remain in the previously submerged areas. This will create a breeding ground for flies, mosquitoes, bacteria and parasites, threatening the health of surrounding populations.

I found another article from the Washington Post recently. Sounds like a very mixed blessing.

China's Massive New Dam Passes Its First Real Test

I am amazed at how that show and others we have watched on there have given a more human face, a more concern for the environment than anything we have seen on our media in a long time. We just realized we have not turned on CNN or MSNBC in ages.

[KittyWampus]

1. A dam built near SIX active faults. Millions will die because of that dam someday-

Not familiar with following source- just pulled it off Google but info jives with everything I've read about this dam.

The Three Gorges Dam is situated near six active fault lines and above 15 million people. A dam burst at Three Gorges would, says engineer Philip Williams, president of the San Francisco-based International Rivers Network, “rank as one of history’s worst man-made disasters.”

Perhaps saving the lives of the thousands of people annually killed by floods could justify the environmental and cultural costs, if the dam works, yet early inspections by international teams of engineers indicate otherwise. An international team of engineers who assessed the dam said, “the chosen approach to the design and implementation of the coffer dam appears to us to indicate a surprisingly cavalier attitude to risk.”

The dam is built to withstand earthquakes up to 7.0 on the richter scale, and the largest recent earthquakes have been below 6.0. However, filling the reservoir behind the dam creates seismic pressure which triggers earthquakes. In fact, earthquakes between 6.0 and 6.5 are expected once the reservoir is filled in 2009. One of the dams designed to hold back sedimentation farther up is subject to even worse seismic problems. “The Jinsha has bad geological conditions, and there is a more severe seismic area upriver from Xiangjiaba,” said a Chinese geologist in Sichuan. He added that near this site, dam projects “should not be encouraged.” Should the Jinsha dam hold out, .5 on the Richter scale is not a large margin of error, and earthquakes are not the dam’s biggest problem. In 1992, the expert group identified 260 landslides and collapses containing at least 100,000 cubic metres of rock and earth; 140 of these had a volume of 1 million cubic metres or more. At least 14 landslides are considered likely to be activated by the filling of the reservoir.

Already major cracks have developed in the dam, and even after extensive repairs, they have reappeared. Pan Jiazheng, one of China’s top engineers recently acknowledged, “It appears that during the concrete pouring, we put too much emphasis on the goal of achieving a very high degree of strength. But it has turned out that a high degree of strength does not necessarily mean good quality in a concrete dam. We have achieved an unnecessarily high degree of strength and a lot of cracks in the dam by pouring too much concrete and spending a great deal of money.
“I feel that it’s too early to be proud of ourselves, and we have a long way to go. As we enter the third phase of the dam construction, I hope we will do our best to build a first-class project rather than a dam with 10-metre-long cracks!”

In addition to problems with the strength of the dam, all three of the dam’s principal benefits, flood control, power generation, and improved navigation, depend on a solution to the problem of reservoir sedimentation. Over 700 million tons of sediment are deposited into the Yangtze annually, making it the fourth largest sediment carrier in the world. The Chinese officials have decided to halt the flow of sediment higher up in the Yangtze tributaries by building four smaller dams, including one that will be second only to the Three Gorges in size. What will happen when sediment builds up behind these dams? There is little to address the primary source of flooding: the loss of forest cover in the Yangtze watershed, and the loss of 13,000 square km of lakes which stored excess water but now contain the topsoil from the lost forest cover. Probe International recommends dykes, channel improvements, overflow area designation, better zoning, flood proofing, and flood warning systems instead of more dams.

Some question whether it will even be possible to accomplish all the purposes of the dam. Flood control requires the reservoir to maintain low levels of water to allow for the inflow of flood waters, while power generation requires high levels of water in the reservoir.

http://72.14.205.104/search?q=cache:1_7UyVuaLHMJ:katabasis.cementhorizon.com/archives/001604.html+three+gorges+dam+earthquake&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us

[John1956PA]

2. One cable TV special detailed the staggering heritage losses caused by the inundation.

Countless ancient and indescribably beautiful edifices have been claimed by the waterway. The now-flooded communities had been homes to citizens who traced their ancestry back for centuries in those locations.

On another note, the engineering and construction efforts which brought the damn and waterway into existence are almost impossible to conceptualize.

Finally, it is interesting to note that the mass of the dammed waters has had some effect on the various wobbles which our planet exhibits as it spins on its axis. Fortunately, those effects do not seem to pose a danger to the stability of the planet.

[Robbien]

3. There was a show on Discovery channel I believe

which talked about all the ancient temples which would be under water due to the dam. One temple was removed brick by brick and ferried further up the mountain to higher ground. But all the others lost.

One of the worst things about this dam, is that the electricity generated is privatized and will be sent to large cities who can pay for it. All the poor people who lived around the dam area and who were displaced by the dam will not receive even one watt of power generated by the dam.

[theoldman]

4. We always criticize other countries for doing things that we

have done and are still doing. China will have to learn by experience that dams have problems. I live in Texas where we are constantly building dams for our water supply in the large cities. I do not foresee any halt to this in the near future.

[madfloridian]

5. Well, I guess it is the displacement of millions...

and the destruction of antiquities as well as cities that got my attention.

They have built a few dams here in Florida just like you have in TX. But we did not displace whole cities and demolish them.

Was I being critical or just saddened?

Since we have just about destroyed the Everglades in my state...I can't throw stones.

I was trying to show concern.

What I saw today was amazing in its scope. That high def format enables a vision of parts of the world we would not otherwise have. I was rather in awe of the beauty that was no longer to exist.

[whoneedstickets]

10. Unfortunately China is so densely populated...

..that creating a parking lot could displace millions.

The loss of antiquities is sad, but nothing Egypt didn't do with ASWAN or that the US didn't do with Glen Canyon.
Its not right, and geologically doomed, but would you rather they built nuclear plants?

[madfloridian]

11. Yes. Is there a new rule not to criticize China?

And the casual attitude here toward all the destruction and loss of antiquities is setting off my radar.

Am I a target on this issue?

It's a perfectly innocent sincerely concerned post and out of 10 posts 3 are questioning that I am being critical of China.

[whoneedstickets]

13. No, criticize all you like..

..but I've heard a lot about how bad this dam is but very little in terms of constructive suggestions for what China ought to do to try to lift half a billion people out of poverty.

There are already numerous alarming stories about extreme air pollution in China. Imagine the cancer deaths that will generate.

I don't want to dismiss cavalierly your sincere sadness at the loss of cultural heritage but don't dismiss my efforts to think realistically and analytically in the face of socio-economic realities either.

I imagine we'll get someone on here claiming that China could go green and use solar or wind or switchgrass or geothermal or something. These would all be better than damming silty rivers in unstable geology but I'm not sure how realistic they are when the worlds most technologically advanced states are still using dams and nuclear plants.

[madfloridian]

14. You are kidding me and joshing me...right?

You got an amazing amount from my post that was not there at all.

[madfloridian]

12. Double posted.

[madfloridian]

6. Report from a St. Pete Times reporter. No wonder the people are compliant.

http://www.sptimes.com/2005/09/20/China/Heavy_toll_in_powerin.shtml

"But for Fu Xiancai and Chen Zhiyan, two of the estimated 1.9-million peasants whose homes were obliterated to make room for the project, the dam represents a bitter legacy.

Fu and Chen say they were among the hundreds of thousands of people shortchanged on their relocation allowance by corrupt local officials. Against all odds, the two men continue their fight. Fu has traveled the 700 miles to Beijing more than a dozen times in an effort to bring the peasants' plight to the attention of Communist Party officials.

He has been ignored by the country's leaders, who maintain that relocated peasants have been appropriately compensated.

"I want to tell the central government that it has been embezzled by city, county and township governments," said Fu, who said he has documents showing fraudulent bookkeeping by local officials.

But China, in its headlong rush to economic eminence, has little patience for such complaints. Both men have been threatened and detained by local officials because of their activism. Foreign journalists who visit Fu are held and questioned by local police. And Chen's wife was sentenced to five years in jail after demanding fair compensation for her family's land. She is to be released in 2009."

Much more at the link.

[WCGreen]

7. Unfortunately, the only viable alternative for China is Coal

burning power plants that would produce tremendous amounts of green house gases...

What would you, in the collective, have them do...

Nuclear power, coal power or just let millions continue to wallow in abject poverty...

It's not perfect but hardly any solution to generating power is worse...

[madfloridian]

8. I was presenting what I saw....why is that not ok?

That is two of you have thought I was being too critical.

What would I have them do?

I am not a China expert.

But I shed tears with the ones who were relocated.

I think it is ok to do that here. I will try not to be too critical of them. Ok?

[madfloridian]

9. Imagine traveling these gorges in high def by boat and air. Amazing.

It is still new enough to me that I get excited.

And to the ones who think I should not be critical...sorry about that.
Why all the sensitivity?