Probe International

(July 10, 2000) Big infrastructure projects like dams push about 10 million people a year out of their homes, according to the World Bank, and alarm bells have been ringing about a huge new project on Myanmar’s border with Thailand.

(June 30, 2000) Beijing: China’s State Council, the country’s cabinet, approved at a conference on Friday the raising of the water level in the Three Gorges Reservoir to 156 meters. The conference was hosted by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, who is also chairman of the Committee for Construction of Three Gorges Project (CCTGP).

(June 22, 2000) Yichang: Chinese construction workers have started to install the first of the 12 more turbo-generators planned for the southern bank of the Yangtze River with the Three Gorges Project.

(February 29, 2000) It has been one of the most controversial public works projects in decades. Environmental activists are still enraged 12 years after work began. But despite all protests, work has finished on China’s Three Gorges Dam. It is scheduled to begin operations in 2008. … “All the fears we had before the dam have been confirmed. …”

(January 26, 2000) The Three Gorges Dam will transmit three million kilowatts of power every day to Shanghai next year after the completion of the power grid from Caijiachong to Shanghai, the municipal government announced today.

(July 22, 2008) The month-long algae outbreak on a tributary of the Yangtze River, blamed on large numbers of phosphor mines and processing factories, has sent an alert to environmental authorities to raise water treatment standards in the Three Gorges Dam area.

(October 2, 2008) Chinese steel manufacturer, Baosteel, recently inked an agreement with the Gezhouba Group to supply high strength steel plates for the last two water turbine generator sets in Three Gorges Right Bank Underground Power Station.

(July 25, 2008) The Star Online reports that China’s Three Gorges Corporation has signed an agreement with Sawarak Energy, a state-owned power company, to build the Murum hydro project in Sarawak. Murum is one of 12 projects slated for construction in Sarawak by 2020.

(January 26, 2000) As we plan to triple our hydropower capacity from 2004 to 2020, it is crucial to decide future dams through a more open and participatory process so as to bring competing interests into consideration,

(January 19, 2000) The 185m-high dam of China’s Three Gorges project has been completed after 13 years of construction. This milestone, in time for China’s summer flood season. was marked with a televised ceremony attended by workers and officials.

(December 17, 2001) … According to a report last year produced by the World Commission on Dams, a project of the World Bank, large dams tend to have net negative environmental and social costs, emit large levels of greenhouse gases, have a poor economic return, often fail to provide projected benefits, and are widely marked by corruption and vested interest that skew the initial intention of the project.

(December 1, 1999) While attention is focussed on the Three Gorges project, Chinese state media has announced that a further 100 new hydroelectric plants will be built on the upper reaches of the Yangtze river and its tributaries in the coming decades.