China will build two additional multi-billion-dollar reservoirs on the Yangtze River to generate power and trap sediment that would otherwise congest the Three Gorges Dam. The two dams, Xiluodu and Xiangjiaba, will on the Jinsha River, which is on the Yangtze’s upper reach in Sichuan province, Xinhua News Agency reported. The China Yangtze Three Gorges Project Development Corporation, an affiliate of the Ministry of Water Resources, will build all three dams. The development corporation will start with the 230-metre-high Xiluodu in 2003, funding it with money from electricity generated by the Three Gorges Dam, which should be partly completed by then, a company spokesman told Xinhua. The budget for Xiluodu Dam is 45.7 billion yuan (HK$42.52 billion), Hubei Daily quoted company vice-general manager He Gong as saying. The budget for Three Gorges was 90 billion yuan in 1990, and the current estimate is 200 billion yuan. Company officials said these two dams will generate nearly as much power as Three Gorges. Power lines will carry the electricity to Guangdong province as part of the country’s larger effort to move western China resources to the more populated east. But a more crucial function is to trap sediment that would otherwise build up at Three Gorges Dam downstream. Earlier media reports say that with a capacity of 12.9 billion cubic metres, Xiluodu’s reservoir can retain silt and cut sediment behind Three Gorges Dam by 34 per cent. Worsening soil erosion and floods have made the Yangtze River muddier in recent years. About 710 million tonnes of sediment passed through the Three Gorges portion of the river in 1998, more than the average 530 tonnes per year noted in the pre-1990s feasibility report. Many experts have worried the sediment could silt up Three Gorges Dam, which would halt electricity generation and flood control.