Construction crews finished the main wall of the world’s largest hydroelectic dam on Saturday, Xinhua News Agency reported. After 13 years of construction, the structure of the 185-meter-high (607 feet), 2,309-meter-long (1.4-mile-long) dam across the Yangtze River was completed at around 2 pm on Saturday.

The Three Gorges project will have earned enough revenue to have paid its construction costs less than a decade after coming into full operation, the project’s chief accountant says.

The Three Gorges hydropower station will become the centre for China’s power grid in 2011 when it goes into full operation with 32 power turbines, a senior official says.

‘Critics of the project – they are many, in China and abroad – have questioned whether building a giant dam is really scientific in the 21st century, when the United States and other nations are weighing the wisdom of damming their rivers.’

Now that China’s massive dam has been built, what will it mean for the environment?

Li Yongan, general manager of the company building the dam, outlined how the project would come in under budget in response to foreign news reports of ‘Western estimates’ that put the cost at between US$40 billion and US$50 billion.

China spends 10 million yuan (US$1.3 million) a year to prevent floating garbage from piling up behind the Three Gorges dam, project officials say.

(April 17, 2000) Official Response to Experts’ Three Gorges Dam Petition