"Fortis has started clearing forest at the dam site on the Macal River, even though it does not have proper authorization from Belizean authorities," says environmentalist Gráinne Ryder of Toronto-based Probe International. Ryder flew over the dam site and travelled the river earlier this month.

Fortis President and CEO, Stanley Marshall, said publicly last year that his company was ready to start building this January pending final approval from the Belize government.

But according to BACONGO, a coalition of Belizean conservation groups, no final approval or permits have been granted to Fortis. Any work at the dam site is illegal, says BACONGO.

"Fortis is breaking the country’s environmental laws that are designed to protect the public interest, and we intend to challenge this in court," says Jamillah Vasquez, Executive Director of BACONGO.

BACONGO has repeatedly urged Belize’s environment minister to enforce the country’s environmental assessment procedures, which would require further studies and public hearings before a final decision. But those appeals have been ignored.

Fortis has also come under fire from one of North America’s largest environmental law organizations, the Washington-based Natural Resources Defense Council.

"This is the worst environmental review process for a hydro dam that I’ve seen in more than 20 years’ international experience," says NRDC’s senior attorney Jacob Scherr. "That a Canadian company would base its decision to go ahead on such an illegal and flawed process is appalling."

If completed, the Chalillo dam would flood one of Central America’s last rainforest havens for endangered wildlife, including freshwater crocodiles, tapirs, jaguars, howler monkeys, and scarlet macaws, fewer than 100 of which remain in Belize.

Although the dam is uncompetitive with alternative sources of power, Fortis shareholders could still make millions from Chalillo because Fortis has a monopoly over Belizean electricity consumers, which allows Fortis to pass on the dam’s high costs to ratepayers.

Another Canadian company, AMEC, has received almost C$500,000 from the Canadian International Development Agency to conduct an environmental assessment of the Chalillo dam. The widely-condemned report dismisses the recommendation from British wildlife researchers that the dam should not be built because it will cause irreparable harm to the region’s wildlife.

 

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For photos and more information, CONTACT:

Gráinne Ryder, Policy Director,
Probe International, Toronto, Canada,
Tel. (416) 964 9223 ext. 228

Jacob Scherr, Senior Attorney,
Natural Resources Defense Council, Washington DC, USA,
Tel. (202) 289 2367

Jamillah Vasquez, Executive Director,
BACONGO, Belize,
Tel. (501) 2 33385