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A bitter fight between the Belize government and activists over a proposed dam has landed in the country’s highest court, with opponents accusing politicians of ignoring an environmental report in a bid to push the project through in secrecy.

The dam, contracted to be built by the Canadian firm Fortis Inc., would flood 22 miles of pristine tropical rainforest that is home to rare species, including the scarlet macaw, howler money and jaguar. It also threatens ancient Mayan monuments.

Environmentalists also criticize Fortis’ $45 million contract with the Belize Electric Company – of which Fortis owns 95 percent – for guaranteeing that energy from the dam will be bought regardless of price, ignoring other sources that may be cheaper.

Fortis already has one hydroelectric dam in Belize, and it charges local people three times the amount that Canadian consumers pay for electricity, according to the U.S.-based Coalition to Stop Fortis.

The Belize Alliance of Conservation NGOs (Bacongo) succeeded in pressuring the government to voluntarily halt initial construction on the project in January. Now it is pressing for the project to be scrapped in hearings before the country’s Supreme Court, expected to run through today (Friday, July 26).

A final decision is not anticipated until later this year.

Bacongo says the government approved the dam even though an assessment of the project paid for by the Canadian government’s International Development Agency said it would cause "significant and irreversible reduction of biological diversity," and fragment a proposed bio-corridor linking the last forested areas of Central America.

The Belize government suppressed the negative report, written by the National History Museum of London in August 2001, until its disclosure was forced through Canada’s Access to Information Act, activists say.

The issue in court is whether the approval of the impact assessment is illegal, because no public hearings were conducted to review the assessment, no environmental mitigation plan has been completed, nor were experts’ submissions considered, as is required by Belize law.

"Fortis’ conduct in Belize is an international disgrace," said Gráinne Ryder of Probe International, a watchdog group in Canada that has just issued a scathing report on the project.

"Without legal actions to expose them, corporations like Fortis will never learn: secret deals for private profit at public expense are unacceptable anywhere."

Stan Marshall, the president and CEO of Fortis, insists the assessment was flawed and overly influenced by the environmental lobby. "It’s my understanding that they came under some tremendous pressure from these environmental groups, and to a certain degree capitulated to them," Marshall said last November.

The proposed Chalillo dam would generate up to 7.3 megawatts of power. About 1,000 megawatts is needed annually to power a U.S. city of 500,000 people.

The assessment also says, "As the resulting reservoir created by the project will inundate approximately 80 percent of this habitat, it will no longer function as a dynamic and balanced ecosystem. Associated wildlife, unable to adapt to the new conditions created by the reservoir, will either drown, starve or less likely relocate to other areas."

The government says it "has enacted and vigorously upholds legislation protecting the environment, including a formal review process for all projects."

"Fortis, the Canadian power company, through its affiliates in Belize, is in full compliance with all statutory and regulatory requirements."

The controversy has raged since construction on a road to the dam site began in November 2001. Hundreds of people, including sugar cane farmers from the north, Mayan communities from the south and villages along the Macal River, gathered to protest the dam and the government’s fast-track approval.

Bacongo says more than 500 Mayans signed a petition calling on the government not to flood the Macal River Valley.

Others want the government to use cane waste as an alternate source of energy. Gráinne Ryder of Probe International says burning the scraps from Belize’s large sugar industry would generate twice as much power as the proposed dam, for as little as six to seven cents per kilowatt-hour.

Bagasse cogeneration (sugar cane burning) is used in India, Pakistan and Indonesia.

The cause has attracted international attention, with environmentalists in Canada, Mexico and the United States joining the campaign against what they see as an environmental and economic disaster.

Robert Kennedy, of the Natural Resources Defence Council, held a press conference in Toronto last year in an effort to pressure Fortis to drop the dam contract, and the actor Harrison Ford published a fiery editorial in Canada’s the Globe and Mail newspaper.

"Ironically, Fortis couldn’t build a dam like Chalillo at home in Newfoundland, where public pressure has led to a moratorium on dams that destroy riverine wildlife and fisheries," Ford wrote.

In a letter to the paper, the Belize government termed these criticisms "an interesting tale based loosely on the facts."

The government is committed to expanding the country’s power grid to poor communities, wrote Cabinet secretary Robert Leslie, and the dam would help protect the river valley from flash floods. He denied that the world’s "rarest and most endangered" species lived in the region.

Fortis says it will abide by the government’s final decision.

The Inter Press Service (IPS) is an international news agency backed by a network of journalists in more than 100 countries. IPS focuses on the events and global processes affecting the economic, social and political development of peoples and nations.