THREE GORGES DAM Success Or Disaster? by Foster Stockwell
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FEATURE THREE GORGES DAM Success or Disaster? By Foster Stockwell ists and busi- I.n 1944, the TVA's first directot, David Iilienthal Three Gorges Dam, China ness people wrote his book T\''Afrennessee Valley Authority): (30 44'18" North, 1iri6'27" through the "Democracy on the March." In the preface, East), crosses the Yangtze Yangtze Iilienthai stated: River at Sandouping, Yichang, Goiges. One of There is almost nothing, however fantastic, that Hubei province, China. The (given competent organization) a team of engineers, the benefits of this moderniza- dam's name refers to the ma- scientists, and administrators cannot do today. Im- jestic limestone cliffs of the possible things can be done, are being done, in this tion in shipping is the savTng of Qutang, Wu, and Xiling mid-tu^entieth century. gorges, which stretch for The one American achievement which has lives for many rope pullers, about 200 kilometers (124 most appealed to Chinese observers as an who previoush' miles) from Fengjie, in Sichun yimerican model for China to follow is the often slipped province, to Yichang, in Hubei regional development program of the Tennes- from the path province, in China's heart- see Valley Authority. TVA mahs sense in during rain- land. The Yangtze is the long- China. The use of public funds for big public storms and fell est river in Asia and the third works and water control, the government and into the river longest in the world, running the individual dti^n cooperating in the hundreds of 6,211 kilometers (3,860 application of modern technology to the feet below. miles) from Qinghai Province andent problems of the soil, the state helping in the Tibetan Plateau to the China has the small man to help himself—this is the East China Sea near Shang- even completed most clear-cut democratic ideal in Asia. hai. The river's watershed is a dam across —John Fairbanks, massive, spanning 1,722,155 the Yangtze— The United States and China, 1948 sq.km (1,070,147 sq. miles) The first time I traveled along the Yangtze« the Three Gorges Dam— with nearly 400 million inhab- (known in Chitia as the Changjiang, or long liver) I itants. was only five years old and the houseboat carr)'Íng the largest such my family and the boatmen was being dragged up dam in the world. It is a massive engineenng achieve- river at the end of a long rope pulled by many ment. But tlierc are many critics in the United States shirtless coolies who carefully trod a tiny patli cut and elsewhere who say that China was foolish to into the cliff face at the side of the river. The path build this dam and that it is bound to lead to major was centuries old and had been used by such rope disasters. They believe tliat this dam, like all other pullers many thousands of times. Each night our big dams around the world constructed lA^thin die boat docked at one of tlie towns near the river bank last fift}' years, will soon display unanticipated prob- so that we could be safe from bandits who operated lems. at night along the course of the ri\'^er. Our journey The Yangtze is the longest river in Asia and the from Hankow to Chongqing took a number of days. third longest in the world after the Nile and Ama- Tliere are only a handful of houseboats and sam- zon. It gets its start in one the large glaciers located pans on this river today. Steamships now take tour- in the Kunlung« Mountains of Tibet, 16,000 feet See NAME INDEX for Names in Chinese on Inside Back Cover 1 1 above sea level. This height causes the river water and 594 feet high. The reservoir behind the dam to flow rapidly for most of its 3,434-mile length, extends 410 miles up the Yangtze (about half the and the flow brings with it large amounts of sedi- length of CaUfornia) to the far inland city of ment and even big rocks as moves toward the ocean. Chongqing. The dam includes ship locks to lift large Much of the city of Shanghai, in fact, stands on the ocean-going freighters from the lower side of the delta that has been created by the river sediment. dam to the upper so that these ships can travel all Interestingly, two other major rivers of Asia start the way from Shanghai to Chongqing». at the same source as the Yangtze: the Mekong» The river channel had to be deepened at various and the Salween«. All three rivers follow much the places to accommodate such ships. The dam also saiTie route as they flow southwards from the gla- has some 32 main electric generators, each with a cier, but instead of joining together they suddenly capacity of 700 MW, that produce a generating ca- diverge. The Mekong twists and turns as it goes pacity' of 22,500 \iW southward through Vietnam and into the South Engineers in the West tend to view dams mainly China Sea. The Salween, by a series of jerks to the as electricity generating structures. They say that west, flows southwards to reach the Bay of Bengal. China would have been much wiser to put many The Yangtze, some thousand miles downstream, small dams along the tributaries of the Yangtze in- suddenly executes a remarkable hairpin bend as the stead of constructing just one big structure. Many water slams head-on into a limestone mountain that smaller units, they say, would produce just as much forces the course of the river water to turn east and electricity' for China as the huge I'hree Gorges Dam. flow across central China all the way to the Pacific This, of course, is true but electricity- production is Ocean. The river effectively divides China north a secondary attribute of this dam. The main reason and south. Local mythology has it that winter for its construction is flood control. And so far this weather north of the river is cold, wliile the weather is succeeding. south of the river is warm. Thus hotels north of the Anodicr aim is to divert water to the parched river will likely have central heating while those just areas of nortli Cliina. In October 2009 tlie Chinese a mile or so on the other side have none. workers began to construct three canals that will The Yangtze has more tlian 700 tributaries and eventually carrj- water fcom southern, central, and die quantity of its water is so enormous that it has western China to the arid north. One branch will flooded disastrously more than 1,000 times, includ- stretch from the Yangtze River all the way to Beijing. ing once in 1931 when an estimated 145,000 people To accomplish this diversion, 330,000 more people were drowned. Such flooding usually happens in late in Henan» and Hubei provinces are being moved summer as a result of monsoon rains and mountain from their homes near the Danjiangkou« reservoir snow-melt. The 1931 flood covered 186 counties and resetfled elsewhere, lliis is where the reservoir and cities. A flood in 1998, while the dam was un- is being enlarged and where a sluice is being built in der construction, lasted from the middle of June to order to divert the water û:om the Yangtze and its the beginning of September. tributaries. To tame the river and control its flooding. Dr. Critics say that even when the three routes are Sun Yat Sen« suggested in 1919 that a dam be completed the diversion still will not satisfy north- erected across the Yangtze. However it was not until ern China's water demands. And they say the mas- 1994 diat the Three Gorges Dam project was actu- sive project will likely cause all sorts of environ- ally started. Workers numbering betu'een 20,000 and mental damage, not the least of which will be a püe 30,000 have been working in sliifts on a 24-hour up of huge amounts of silt as the water flow brings schedule ever since. A total of 1.3 million people this sediment to the dam. However the Chinese have been relocated in new homes to make way for engineers say tliey have solved this problem by in- the dam and its huge reservoin stalling a system that flushes out die silt as it accu- The Three Gorges Dam stands at Sandouping« mulates. in Hubei« Province. It has become a symbol of Filling of the Danjiangkou reservoir with water Chinas modernization efforts. It is 7,575 feet long has not only covered farms and some villages, it 1 2 CHINESE AMERICAN FORUM - Volume XXV, No. 3 - January 2010 has also drowned many ancient temples, grave sites, disaster, big Chinese ships move up and down the and other cultural relics that could not be moved or Yangtze river transporting trucks and heavy indus- relocated It is, of course, impossible to estimate trial macliinerj' from Chongqing out into the Pacific how much of a loss this may be to China's histori- Ocean and then on to many parts of the world. cal record, but clearly the Chinese have decided that ### saving the lives of fiood victims and creating a ship Foster Stockwell grew up in China (12years) first in navigation system that extends from the interior of Fujii3n0 Province and then in St^chuan* Promnce (áty the country to the Pacific coast is far more impor- of Chengdum) as the son of American missionaries. He tant than protecting some ancient artifacts.