(1) Residents in Three Gorges reservoir area apply to move out
Feb. 28, 2001 – China Daily reports that more than 60,000 people living in the reservoir area of the Three-Gorges Project under construction have applied at the local resettlement bureaus to move to other Chinese provinces.

The figure is 10,000, or one-sixth, more than the planned figure, said an official with the Chongqing Municipal Relocation Bureau.

According to the construction plan, about 1.17 million people in Hubei and Chongqing will leave their home in the Three Gorges Area. Nearly one million live in Chongqing.

To date, some 200,000 people have moved out of their homes in Chongqing. The number of emigrants exceeded 10,000 last year.

An estimated 50,000 people are expected to move out this year. About 40,000 people will be settled in 11 Chinese provinces. Up to this week, 30,000 resettlers have contacted with the counties they will settle in.

(2) Clean-up of river a sham – academic
Feb. 26, 2001 – The South China Morning Post has revealed that a widely publicised effort to clean up the Huai River has failed. According to the newspaper, a whistle-blowing official contradicted glowing reports published in the People’s Daily.

The three-year programme to rid the Huai River and its tributaries of pollutants endangering drinking water for 150 million people was hailed as a triumph when it ended in December.

But Professor Su Kiasheng, of Huainan Industrial College and a vice-chairman of Anhui’s People’s Political Consultative Conference, claimed in the Worker’s Daily that the water was still seriously polluted. “It is a long way from reaching the State Council’s standards,” he wrote, adding that the discharge of pollutants last year more than doubled government targets.

“To meet the State Council’s targets, some provinces gave false figures and made false reports to the central Government. As a matter of fact, the pollution has not changed much, although some of the smaller factories have been ordered to halt production.”

This story comes on the heels of the discovery that the Yangtze River is seriously polluted and that officials are worried the reservoir behind the Three Gorges dam will become a “sewage lake”.
For related stories see:
Funds needed to prevent ‘sewage lake’, February 1, 2001
(3) Insurers share 3 Gorges coverage
Feb. 23, 2001 – The China Daily reports that three domestic insurers inked a 10 billion yuan (US$1.2 billion) insurance contract in Beijing with the China Yangtze Three Gorges Project Development Corp for the country’s largest power plant.

The three companies will jointly underwrite the construction insurance for the installation of 14 hydropower generating units on the Three Gorges’ left bank and the insurance for the transportation of transformers and gas insulated systems.

The People’s Insurance Company of China (PICC), the country’s largest property insurer, will take 50 per cent of the policy while China Pacific Insurance Company handles 30 per cent and the China Ping An Insurance Company the remaining 20 per cent.

Chinese insurance companies have been involved in the project ever since the start of the construction. Not counting the latest deal, PICC holds 17 billion yuan (US$2.04 billion) worth of insurance contracts connected with the project, accounting for 70 per cent of the total.

(4) Two more Yangtze dams planned
Feb. 23, 2001 – The South China Morning Post reports that 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.

Company officials said these two dams will generate nearly as much power as Three Gorges. But a more crucial function is to trap sediment that would otherwise build up at Three Gorges Dam downstream.

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.

(5) Resettlement rules
Feb. 17, 2001 – The China Daily reports that the rules on resettlement for the Three Gorges dam are about to change. Yesterday, Premier Zhu Rongji presided over the 35th executive meeting of the State Council which examined and adopted, in principle, draft amendments to the rules on resettlement

The State Council has just finished reviewing the amendments to the resettlement rules set originally in 1993. The revised rules are to be issued by the State Council after the amendments are made.

(6) Project to be launched to improve the environment of Three Gorges area
Jan. 30, 2001 – A decade-long project titled “Green Mountains and Rivers Project” is to be launched in southwest China’s Chongqing Municipality to improve the environment of the Three Gorges area, where the Three Gorges Reservoir is under construction.

With 20.4 billion yuan (about 2.46 billion US dollars) investment for the next decade, Chongqing, the nearest metropolis to the Three Gorges of the Yangtze River, aims to return more than 133,000 ha of cultivated land on slopes to forests or grassland, according to a recent report by the People’s Daily.

Chongqing, also, recently decided to take tougher measures to curb pollution that still threatens the ecology of the Three Gorges area.

The recent disclosure of internal documents in the Three Gorges Probe revealed that environmental degradation in the Three Gorges reservoir area is much worse than expected.

– END –

Three Gorges Probe welcomes submissions. However, it is not a forum for political debate. Rather, Three Gorges Probe is dedicated to covering the scientific, technical, economic, social, and environmental ramifications of completing the Three Gorges Project, as well as the alternatives to the dam.

Publisher: Patricia Adams
Executive Editor: Mu Lan
Assistant Editor: Lisa Peryman

March 5, 2001
ISSN 1481-0913