Dam and Resevoir Projects

With the possible exceptions of enterprises involving nuclear-fission or the incineration of hazardous wastes, no more socioculturally incendiary undertaking can be announced than the intention to construct a dam and reservoir project across a free-flowing stream. The ethical outrage heaped on sponsors of new projects is rivaled by the same antagonists' dyspepsia over sad outcomes at past reservoirs, whose dams' eventual removals with repairs of former conditions have been demanded by friends of the environment.

Explored here are current and past professional standards involving choices between right and wrong (i.e., ethics) that have been breached among politicians, economists, engineers, or other scientists during the design or emplacement of a (large) dam. While it sets no records in any particular category of dam features, the Aswan High Dam astride the Nile in southern Egypt will be the touchstone of the analysis. The following fundamental issues will be addressed: 1) What detriments beyond financial costs do dams cause for unsuspecting beneficiaries and the unintended other-affected? 2) What benefits do dam projects provide to humanity, to the land, and to environmental flora and fauna? and 3) What alternatives to avoid environmental damages from dams exist or may be anticipated?

Social and Environmental Problems with Riverine Impoundments

No less a conservationist than Theodore Roosevelt is reputed to have said that "a r

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y" (Kumar, emphasis added 8). ["Local extinction" is baffling.] These dams are said to be parts of the "giant Narmada River Valley Project" that will include 30 large dams, 135 "medium-sized" dams, and 3,000 small dams (Kumar 8). Of particular concern to biologists are 31 plant species rare in the region that, after the inundation, may become "extinct locally" in an area with 369 species of plants (Kumar 8). One zoologist has said that the construction of "innumerable dams" has already caused declines to "endangered" levels among 25 species of fish, 20 "vulnerable" ones, and 14 "rare" ones--from among 440 species of known Indian freshwater fish (Kumar 8). One species not seen since 1858 (!) is certainly going to be driven to extinction, according to this zoologist, by the construction of the Narmada River dams (Kumar 8). Sometimes, the ecological pluses and minuses are speculative, at best. Kumar did not mention the resettlement issue that the World Bank and local-agency sponsors believed was mitigated with offers to the Narmada beneficiaries, said to be "unparalleled and unmatched in the world," which included gifts of irrigable land, housing plots (outside the reservoir pool area, obviously), resettlement grants, and "civ

Category: Science - D