Dam it! No not that kind. The environmental kind: an enormous controversial development project, often in a rainforest or agricultural area, which dislocates indigenous peoples, creates political havoc, and stirs tremendous controversy in the local media. There probably hasn't been a dam proposed or built that wasn't or isn't controversial.
One example is the Yacyreta Dam in South America. Shared by Paraguay and Argentina, it is in the midst of controversy because it is displacing people by flooding their communities. Construction of the dam has caused the Parana River to rise 3 meters and it is expected to rise another 7 meters between 1998 and 2000. The dam, 11 years behind schedule and billions over budget, will only be able to produce electricity at three times the current rate, according to the World Bank.
Another controversial dam is the proposed Bakun Dam in the rainforested center of Sarawak, a Malaysian state on the island of Borneo. Bakun is controversial because, like other proposed dams, it poses numerous potential environmental impacts. Like Yacyreta Dam, Bakun will also displace indigenous peoples who depend on the rainforest for their food, shelter and clothing needs.
Other dam projects are underway or being planned. One is on the Mekong River and will affect Thailand and Campuchia (Cambodia). Others are in China, Guyana, Chile and the Congo. Others, like Arun III in Nepal, have been scrapped.
People who aren't involved in a dam controversy don't understand the environmental ramifications of construction that come from building roads, clearing a dam site, building the dam itself, flooding the dammed area and, finally, operating the dam. The damage is particularly worrisome in forests. (Yes, we're playing with words.)
To begin with, construction crews have to cut a road to the dam site. Not just a backwoods road; one that can handle heavy construction equipment. This road is the beginning of dam environmental impacts. It destroys vegetation, changes land use (which causes erosion), interrupts animal and bird migration patterns and opens forest to outsider species, which cause further deforestation and related environmental damage.
Excavation at the construction site causes the second major impact. Everyone who lives at ground zero has to move, animals included, disrupting time-ordered social structures from the community level down to the family. Many creatures don't escape. Plants can't move at all; they're all lost. Moving all the earth and rock creates sediment which enters streams and increases the sediment load (amount) they carry. It also reduces the water quality, causes an increase in water temperature by reducing biomass (total living organisms, microscopic to large), and kills off fish. Actual construction of the dam continues to cause river siltation and adds to the dust load and noise begun in the excavation stage. During construction it's none to quiet in the forest.
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