August 28, 2004

India battles the red river dragon

by Arun Bhattacharjee

New Delhi: India's fear of a downstream deluge in the Sutlej River in

the northwestern state of Himachal Pradesh, should a blockage on the
Peerechu river in Tibet burst, highlights the need for trust and
comprehensive agreements between South and Southeast Asian nations
and China. It is a fear that has brought several serious problems to light
in India, including the country's vulnerability to environmental warfare.

A lake appeared late last month after a landslide blocked the Peerechu
River, a tributary of the Sutlej River that also flows into India, forcing
the government to evacuate at least 3,000 people from eight
downstream villages in Himachal Pradesh. In 2000, more than 120
lives were lost and large scale damage to property was caused by a
flash flood along the same stretch of the Sutlej River, as there was no
warning.

China issued an early warning this year, but refused to grant Indian
engineers permission to visit the site. After three weeks of cliff-hanging
suspense, China informed India through diplomatic channels that the
natural blockage on the river could not be blasted without a proper
study of possible upstream damage.

A prominent technology company, which does not want to be named,

says its experts have calculated that a breach at the natural blockage of
this lake would affect half a million people and cause property damage
worth US$13-15 million. The Press Trust of India quotes P Perumal, a
hydrologist at the Indian Institute of Technology in Roorkee, as saying,
"The Peerechu Lake burst will have horrific effects, as water is likely
to rush down to the hilly slope through a narrow gorge. It will not be
like floods in the plains where water can spread out. What one expects
is a huge wall of water moving in bulk without its height getting
diminished.

"It's weight, combined with gravity effect [Himachal is just below

Tibet, will flatten everything on the route for several kilometers within
a few hours," Perumal says. The private company study used 2001
census data and remote sensing for the analysis, to claim the flood
water would cause damage as far away as 230 kilometers and "might
extend up to 1.2 km-0.6km each side of the river with a depth of up to
20 meters".

According to a defense analyst, the danger posed by the lake in Tibet is

just the tip of the iceberg. India's geographical location at the foot of
the Himalayas makes it vulnerable to "environmental attacks" from the
numerous glaciers precariously perched atop the mountain range. These
mountains of ice can be "toppled" by remote triggering with explosives
or their melting accelerated by covering them with carbon black to
enable them to absorb more sunlight. This could result in flooding the
whole Indo-Gangetic plains, the scientist said.

Analysts say Chinese scientists have been extensively mapping the

Himalayan glaciers for nearly three decades with the help from the
International Center for Integrated Mountain Development in
Kathmandu. As most of South and Southeast Asia's 10 major rivers
originate from Tibet, China has first user rights, and continues to use
river water without comprehensive treaties with its downstream
southeastern and southwestern countries.

India, a secondary user, is also facing problems with neighbor

Bangladesh over its decision to connect India's major rivers through 37
links covering over 6,000 kilometers to meet the water shortage and
agricultural needs of India's water deficient regions. Although the river-
link project is still in a conceptual stage, it signed an agreement with
Bangladesh in October 2003 to consult Dhaka before the final project
report was prepared.

Even within India, a former government minister is heading a 12-

member committee of "concerned citizens", including environment
activist Medha Patkar, to oppose the river-link project on the grounds
that "hydraulic equality at the national level did not mean transfer of
water from water-endowed basins to dry areas for inefficient and
commercial uses through socially and economically wasteful projects,
not approved through open professional assessments".

A Ranganathan, a member of the committee of 12 says, "India is a

democratic country and the environment groups have a lot of clout
which is not true for China." He says this is the principal reason why a
comprehensive treaty on water use and the rights of the downstream
countries are required. The Tibetan plateau is the principal watershed in
Asia and the source of its 10 major rivers, including the Brahmaputra
(or Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibet), the Sutlej and the Indus. About 90% of
the Tibetan rivers' runoff flows downstream to India, Bangladesh,
Nepal and Pakistan. Southeast Asia's water needs are met by the
Mekong, which also originates in Tibet.

India's major concern is the diversion of the Brahmputra, which will

jeopardize its river-link project. A team of Chinese experts was
studying part of Sang Po (Brahmaputra) as part of its plans to construct
a major hydropower project in the Tibet Autonomous Region during
the visit of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to China. India
originally planned to link 30 rivers at a cost of $5.6 billion by 2020, but
a public interest law suit against the government for not implementing
major plans brought on an order issued by the country's Supreme Court
to implement the project by 2012. Under Supreme Court pressure, a
task force under former minister of water resources, Suresh Prabhu,
completed the feasibility report on six links instead.

Meanwhile, last December, activist groups in Thailand and Myanmar

called on China to consult countries downstream before building 13
large dams on the Salween River. The dams, planned for the upper part
of the river in China's Yunnan province, would have severely damaged
the ecosystems and livelihood of people in Thailand and Myanmar,
who depend on the 1,700 mile-long river for fishing and farming, the
groups said. The Bangkok Post reported the groups had handed a
protest letter to the Chinese Embassy in Bangkok. The Salween, called
Nu Jiang by the Chinese, originates high in the Tibetan mountains and
flows through Yunnan province in China into Myanmar, forms part of
Thailand's northern border with Myanmar, before emptying into the
Andaman Sea. It is Southeast Asia's second longest river after the
Mekong.

"China is going to exploit the Salween, which is the last free-flowing

international river in the region, the way they are already doing it to the
Mekong river," complained Chainarong Sretthachau, director of the
Southeast Asia Rivers Network.

Shui Fu, Chinese author of The River Dragon Has Come, writes that
there were virtually no large-scale water projects in China before 1949.
"It was since the years of the Great Leap Forward [1958-60], the
Chinese Communist Party has heavily promoted dam construction as
part of a massive national campaign," claiming that in less than 40
years all of China's major rivers would be dammed.

While the debate over water harvesting and conservation and building
high dams lasted for decades and led to a political struggle, the dam
lobby supported by Mao Zedong won, although Zhou Enlai expressed
his strong reservations after the 7,000-Cadres Conference in 1962. "I've
been told by doctors that if a person goes without eating for a few days,
no major harm will result. But if one goes without urinating for even
one day, they will be poisoned. It's the same with land. How can we
accumulate water and not discharge it?" he said.
After the accumulation lobby won, "accumulation" was taken to the
extreme. Anhui Province built an excessively large "river irrigation
network", while people in the north took the policy of accumulating
rain water for irrigation to such extremes that their fields became
waterlogged. Thus the "water conservancy campaign" was ultimately
reduced to a campaign to build reservoirs and dams, and by 1990,
83,387 of them had been built in China. "Three hundred and sixty six
of them had a capacity over 100 million cubic meters, 2,499 had a
capacity of 10 million to 100 million cubic meters, and more than
80,000 had capacities below 10 million cubic meters", writes Shu Fu.
No one, not even Zhou Enlai, was able to block the national "dam
building campaign". As a result, from 1949 to 1959, 8,000 million
cubic meters of earth was moved - 580 million cubic meters in 1958
alone. Before 1949, only 23 large or medium-sized dams existed in all
of China.

One, the Fushan dam on the Huai River, was used to block passage
across the Huai during an attack against the Wei Kingdom in AD 516.
The scale and sophistication of the Fushan dam was unprecedented for
that time, but the knowledge gained through its construction was not
passed on. It disappeared with the collapse of the imperial autocracy.
The Fushan dam also demonstrated to the world the kind of disasters
that large dams can produce. Four months after the dam's completion,
the Huai overtopped the Fushan, releasing 10,000 million cubic meters
of water, killing 10,000 people downstream.

Granted, the 80,000 dams and reservoirs built over the past 40 years
have played an important role in flood control, electricity generation
and irrigation and have provided water for urban areas and industry.
These achievements should not be underestimated, but dam
construction, especially during and after the Great Leap Forward, had
disastrous consequences too. By 1973, 40% (or 4,501) of the 10,000
Chinese reservoirs with capacities between 10,000 and 1 million cubic
meters were found to have been built below project specifications and
were unable to control floods effectively. Even more dams had
problems relating to the geology of the dam site, and to sedimentation.

More serious, however, were the numerous dam collapses. By 1980,

2,796 dams had collapsed, including two large-scale dams (the
Shimantan and Banqiao dams). One hundred and seventeen medium-
sized and 2,263 small dams had also collapsed. On average, China
witnessed 110 collapses per year, with the worst year being 1973, when
554 dams collapsed. The official death toll resulting from dam failures
came to 9,937 (not including the Banqiao and Shimantan collapses,
which had a combined estimated death toll of up to 230,000).

China privately claims that among the more than 2,000 dam collapses,
only 181 involved fatalities; not considered credible by the Western
diplomatic community. The number of formally recognized dam
collapses had risen to 3,200 - roughly 3.7% of all dams in China.
According to a deposition before the Central Committee by Ma
Shoulong, the chief engineer of the Water Resources Bureau of Henan
Province, "The crap from that era [the Great Leap Forward] has not yet
been cleaned up." In 1958, more than 110 dams were built in Henan;
by 1966 half of them had collapsed. Of four key dams on the Yellow
River - the Huayuankou, Wei Mountain, Luokou, and Wangwang
Village dams - two were dismantled and two were postponed.
According to experts, if the riskiest of these dams were to fail,
hundreds of thousands of people could be killed not only in China, but
in some of the downstream countries.

But current levels of funding are woefully inadequate to repair or

reinforce the dams. At least $45.7 million would be required for the
large and medium sized reservoirs alone. During a 1991 conference on
dam collapses in Vienna, participating countries exchanged
information on collapses in their respective countries, as is the practice.
Only the Chinese representative said that China had no dam collapses
to report. Foreign experts attending the conference commented to
China's representative, Pan Jiazheng, that it was miraculous for a
country as big as China, a country with 80,000 reservoirs, to have had
no dam collapses.

Meanwhile, as an official of India's Water Resources Ministry points

out, China is building dams over Sang Po, known as Brahmaputra in
India and Meghna in Bangladesh. But Bangladesh only voices its
complaints with India. No protest was ever sent to China. The Ganges
flowing from India, and the Meghna, are the two major rivers that meet
the water needs of Bangladesh. He says that dam bursts or collapses are
short term disasters compared to the long term impacts on the
downstream countries in terms of loss of irrigation water, destruction of
fish and other aquatic flora and fauna that sustain the ecosystems of
South and Southeast Asia. For instance, the rice bowls of Southeast
Asia will suffer badly if the water flow in the Mekong River suffers.
Fifty-three percent of Vietnam's employment comes from agriculture
(mainly rice) and rice accounts for 50% of its gross domestic product,
covering 82% of the countries farmland - or 6.3 million hectares.
Thailand exports 6.39 million tons of rice and is a net exporter today,
and that is mainly because of the Mekong. Laos and Cambodia's
economies depend entirely on Mekong, on which 54 dams are being
built (six are in progress). Cambodia's Tone le Sap Lake, as large as
Lake Victoria in East Africa, may suffer equally with its 93 types of
exotic fish species.

The World Wide Fund (WWF) warned in June: "China's Yangtze River
faces a greater threat from dams than any other river in the world.
China has 46 large dams planned or under construction on the Yangtze.
The dams could destroy habitats of endangered species, including the
Yangtze River dolphin, of which only a few dozen remain.
Downstream communities also suffer from the depleted fish stocks and
low water levels created by dams," said WWF. China has more dams
planned or under construction than any other country, according to
WWF. Eighty-eight dams are being built and at least 36 more are in the
planning stages. China's Three Gorges Dam is the largest in the world.
Alarms have been sounded recently about the country's plans for 16
new dams on the Salween River, which runs into Myanmar and
Thailand. Even some of the country's top hydroelectric engineers have
expressed doubts, saying that most people will benefit little from the
Three Gorges Dam, as was reported by the BBC.

But the good news is that China is slowing taking note of global
differences. According to diplomatic sources here, Prime Minister Wen
Jiabao has ordered a review of a 13-dam project on Western China's Nu
River, citing environmental concerns. The long-term Chinese reaction
to South and Southeast Asia's growing concern has to be balanced
against China's desire to become a global economic power, which
needs cheap energy for industrialization. Besides, nearly two thirds of
China still depends on Monsoon rains.

Arun Bhatttacharjee, post graduate in Mass Communications from the

University of Calcutta and Minnesota, was South Asia Bureau Chief for
Depth News Asia and joint chief of Bureau for Kolkata-based Amrita
Bazar Patrika, to name a few. He has authored several books,
including Indian press: From Profession to Industry, Dateline
Mujibnagar, Chasing the Missing Link, and Gender Bias in Reporting:
A journalist's Handbook.