At night, the sky over Chongqing is lit up by a dance of powerful strobe lights.The fast-growing metropolis of six million people never sleeps; it is one of the hubs of China’s economic miracle. The electricity used to brighten the night sky is provided courtesy of the Three Gorges Project. The reservoir of the Three Gorges Dam will reach its final height in a few weeks. Is the light show over Chongqing a symbol of how the dam has transformed China’s society? Or is it the gloss that covers a social and environmental disaster? My wife, an environmental journalist, and I have monitored the project for almost 15 years. This summer we traveled down the 400-mile-long Three Gorges reservoir for an eyewitness tour. Here are some impressions from our trip.
New Fengdu is a rebuilt town with rich tourism and mineral revenues. Most people here have overcome the trauma of displacement, and in the evening we found them dancing by the reservoir.
Early in the trip, we met a group of farmers on a ferry on their way home from the market. Like many of the 1.3 million people displaced for the dam, they live on a different planet than the middle-class consumers in Chongqing. The farmers told us that the compensation they received was not sufficient to pay for their new houses, and that their new lands are so poor that they can't rebuild their lives.
by Nick Austin
Erosion has turned out to be even more serious than expected. The reservoir's fluctuating water levels are destabilizing the slopes along much of the reservoir, and have triggered major landslides. Bringing erosion under control will require several hundred thousand more people to be displaced.
Closer to the dam, the once proud Yangtze has been turned into a floating garbage dump. Garbage collectors in boats are paid to fish the debris off the surface, but the periodic algae blooms in the reservoir and downstream of the dam are proving more difficult to fight.
After six days on the road and river, we finally stood at the Three Gorges Dam. We were impressed and worried at the same time. Chinese dam builders are trying to replicate the project across the country and all over the world. Concerned government officials, scientists and NGO activists are trying to strengthen environmental safeguards and stop destructive projects from going forward. The last chapter of the Three Gorges saga has not yet been written.
More information
All photos are credited to International Rivers unless otherwise noted, and were taken in the summer of 2009.
- Download our updated Three Gorges Fact Sheet.
- Read Katy Yan's blog about the proposal to build a dozen dirty dams on the Jinsha River and three more on the Yangtze above Three Gorges.
