Probe International

(October 1, 1999) The resettlement of up to two million people who will be flooded out of their homes by China’s massive Three Gorges dam is in chaos, according to a Chinese sociologist.

(November 29, 1999) After thousands of years of letting their sewage flow downstream and out to sea, Chongqing and other Yangtze cities now face the prospect of it staying in the water that laps their shores. If completed as planned, the massive Three Gorges dam will slow the Yangtze river’s flow, backing up water and concentrating sewage and modern-day pollutants in its 600-kilometre reservoir. A Chinese scientist from Chongqing predicts it will be a “huge, stagnant, stinking pond.”

(December 16, 1999) Uneconomic and outmoded, the Three Gorges dam will have difficulty finding customers for its electricity in China’s rapidly modernizing electricity market, according to a new Probe International report.

(January 18, 2000) In a dramatic shift in policy, China’s central government recently announced plans to move 125,000 rural people out of the Three Gorges dam region – a departure from its original plan to resettle farmers locally by moving them uphill to new land or by providing them with new jobs in the vicinity of the dam.

(January 18, 2000) China News Agency reported on January 12 that the Three Gorges dam has cost the Chinese government $5.65 billion (all figures in U.S. dollars) since construction began in 1993.

(February 21, 2000) The Chinese corporation in charge of building the massive Three Gorges dam has already started building another giant dam on a downstream tributary and has plans for another two dams upstream.

(February 21, 2000) China’s State Auditing Administration has revealed that local officials have embezzled about $57.7 million (all figures in U.S. dollars) in Three Gorges resettlement funds. This graft represents almost 12 percent of the total $487.8 million that the central government has allocated for relocating the 1.2 million people who will be flooded out of the Three Gorges area if dam construction continues as planned.

(March 24, 2000) The official Chinese media has reported another Three Gorges corruption scandal, this time linked to top executives at the companies responsible for building the world’s largest hydrodam.

(May 25, 2000) Racked by allegations of mismanagement and corruption, scandal surrounds China’s Three Gorges Dam project once again following two recent exposés involving senior officials and vast sums of missing project funds.

(June 16, 2000) A petition to delay the Three Gorges dam project earlier this year drew a firm response from Chinese leaders, quick to assure critics the scandal-plagued project was “progressing smoothly” and would go ahead as planned.

(June 19, 2000) Financial and technical difficulties are not enough to dampen official zeal for hydroelectric projects.

(July 17, 2000) Chinese experts urge Premier Zhu Rongji to stick to initial operating plan.

(October 12, 2000)

(1) Anger at dam corruption growing
(2) Most farmers to stay near Three Gorges
(3) Three Gorges officials arrested for smuggling construction equipment
(4) Irregularities in the Three Gorges bidding procedures

(October 24, 2000)

(1) Work at Three Gorges dam resumes
(2) Victim’s widow claims US$420,000 compensation for husband’s death at Three Gorges dam site
(3) Ministry of Water Resources accused of embezzling US$50-million