Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
managed by local or regional hydropower interests largely independent from the Five En-
ergy Giants. Because of the small scale of most of these projects, they undergo scrutiny
only by county-level officials and are not subject to full EIAs. Owing to the mountainous
terrain and the monsoon climate, landslides are common on slopes that have been disturbed
by such projects, and their scars can be seen all along the banks of the river.
Meanwhile, the status of the thirteen major Nu River projects changes regularly with
the prevailing political winds, and policy debates over the past decade have had the back-
and-forth quality of a tennis match. After considerable opposition from Chinese and inter-
national conservation organizations, Premier Wen Jiabao ordered a temporary halt to all
Nu dams on February 18, 2004. This was considered the first serious test of China's new
EIA Law, which was promulgated in 2002. Under Premier Wen's advisement, the NDRC,
along with the State Environmental Protection Administration, conducted a review of hy-
dropower development on the Nu. Early in 2006, officials decided to allow construction to
commence on a scaled-down version of the projects, a turn of events often referred to in the
media as the “great adjustment” (
da tiaozheng
), beginning with four of the thirteen dams:
Maji, Yabiluo, Liuku, and Saige (Chen 2006). Two of the four, Liuku and Saige, were set
to begin construction during the Eleventh Five-Year Plan period (2006-2010), according
to a document released by the NDRC entitled
The Plan on the Development of Renewable
Energy During the Eleventh Five-Year Plan Period
(see Brown and Xu 2010).
However, plans were stalled yet again by Premier Wen in April 2009, who declared,
somewhat obliquely, that authorities should “widely heed opinions, expound on [the plan]
thoroughly and make prudent decisions” (qtd. in Shi 2009). Speculation abounded that
Wen, who has an academic background in geology, was concerned about potential seismic
hazards in the aftermath of the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008. Much of southwest China is
known for seismic activity: a 1996 quake centered near Lijiang killed hundreds and caused
widespread structural damage to the tourism-dependent Old Town district. However, by
early 2011, top officials had again decided to move forward with the projects; Shi Lishan,
deputy director of the Energy Department, was quoted in the
China Daily
as saying, “I
think it's certain that the country will develop the Nujiang [Nu River]” (
China Daily
2011).
On January 23, 2013, the State Council announced that Songta Dam, the dam situated
highest in the watershed and the only one located in the Tibet Autonomous Region, will
officially begin construction during the Twelfth Five-Year Plan period (2011-2015). Four
more dams—Maji, Yabiluo, Liuku, and Saige—were also officially approved, and China
Huadian was given permission to begin construction within short order. It is nearly impos-
sible at this point to speculate about the final number of dams that will be approved and
completed on the Nu. International Rivers (2013b), a prominent NGO whose mission is to
preserve the world's free-flowing rivers, published a database in 2013 based on an extens-
ive literature review, media reports, site visits, and communication with various experts;
it reported that as many as twenty-seven dams are under some form of consideration or
