Citing ‘worrisome’ levels of industrial pollution, China’s state environmental agency has acknowledged that pollution-control efforts in the Three Gorges reservoir area have not gone as well as planned, China Daily reports.

Renowned water engineer Zhang Guangdou, a key figure in China’s dam-building program of the past 50 years, including the Three Gorges project, has openly called the quality of construction work on the Three Gorges dam "far from excellent" and "not first-class."

Journalist Dai Qing interviews Guo Laixi, an eminent geographer who took part in the Chinese feasibility study for the Three Gorges dam but became so alarmed about the project’s potential impacts that he refused to sign the study team’s final report.

The builders of the Three Gorges dam have suddenly announced a dramatic change in the project schedule: The reservoir, which was filled to the 135-metre level in June, is to be raised an additional four metres by the end of October.

Thousands of monkeys that fled in fear as the Three Gorges reservoir began rising have returned to their native habitat on one of the Yangtze’s most beautiful tributaries. But they have come back to a much dirtier river.

China has used both the SARS health crisis and the crackdown on the
falun gong spiritual movement as reasons to detain migrants who dare to
complain about the Three Gorges resettlement operation.

Deirdre Chetham, the author of Before the Deluge: The Vanishing World of the Yangtze’s Three Gorges, is featured tonight on WBAI’s Asia Pacific Web broadcast, starting at 8 p.m.