Chinas Three Georges Dam A Disaster

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(Free-Press-Release.com) May 26, 2011 -- Environmentalists firmly believe that Three Gorges Dam is a model for disaster. However, despite this China is planning to duplicate the dam both domestically and internationally.

Endangering millions of people’s lives, the largest $22.5 billion hydropower project in the world is known to cause numerous problems, as severe drought plagues central and southern China. The dam broke the record for the largest number of people displaced, when 1.4 million residents had to be relocated, as 13 cities, 140 towns and 1,50 villages were flooded, including factories, mines, waste dumps and massive industrial centres, producing a festering bog of effluent, silt and industrial pollutants.

China’s longest river dam has created major shipping, environment, agricultural irrigation and water supplies problems, even though the dam was hoped would control the notoriously flood-prone Yangtze.

Due to low water levels, two ships were grounded near Wuhan, capital of Hubei Province. Authorities closed down more than 200 kilometers of river for safety reasons.

Irrigation of farm land was blocked with water in 1,392 dams in Hubei, well below minimum threshold.

The dam’s managing body (CTGPC), China Three Gorges Corporation, was given the order to increase flows to lower reaches, to help counteract the drought.

Household refuse is dumped directly into the Yangtze River, due to China’s municipalities none provision of rubbish collection. Approximately 150 million people live upstream from the dam. The huge dam was placed under threat by ever increasing islands of toxic floating rubbish back in August 2010. The rubbish gets so thick in places above the dam that people can walk on the surface of it. Flooding up stream caused 50,000 sq meters of water to be covered by rubbish, although 3 tones were removed daily.

Up to seven million cubic feet of garbage - the equivalent of 80 Olympic-sized pools - is collected from the dam every year, says Chen Lei, an official with the China Three Gorges Corporation.

Chinese officials and experts have advised of the potential for seismic disturbances produced by the huge weight of the reservoir's water on the region's geology.

Erosion of the reservoir and the downstream riverbanks has created landslides as well as threatening one of the largest fisheries in the East China Sea.

The project has been overwhelmed with corruption, technological problems, spiraling costs, human rights violations and resettlement difficulties.

For more , go to http://www.tropicpost.com/three-gorges-dam-disaster/

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