three gorges dam

The Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze will be the largest hydroelectric dam in the world. It would stretch 2,150 meters across and tower 185 meters above the worlds third longest river. Its reservoir would be over 600 kilometers long and force the displacement of as many as 1.9 million people. Construction began in 1994 and is scheduled to take 20 years; the project is now expected to cost over US$24 billion. In 1989, strong citizen opposition to the project in China forced the Peoples Congress to suspend plans for the dam, but the project was swiftly resurrected by Premier Li Peng. The project is currently facing massive corruption, spiraling costs, technological problems, major resettlement difficulties all raising questions regarding the wisdom of pursuing the project further. The export credit agencies of Switzerland, France, Germany and Canada are supporting the project. U.S. investment banks, including Morgan Stanley Dean Witter, Salomon Smith Barney of Citigroup, Chase Manhattan, and Merrill Lynch have financed the dam through the underwriting of China Development Bank bonds, a government run development bank that funds infrastructure construction. Approximately 65% of the Three Gorges Dam construction costs are financed by the CDB,Goldman Sachs & Co and CS First Boston. Their $1 billion PRC general obligation bond offering at the end of 1998 reportedly funneled $200 million to the dam. Up to 1.9 million people will be displaced. Resettlement on this scale is impossible. Not only are communities destroyed, but the cities and towns that are forced to absorb the migrants face economic and social upheaval. The WCD recommends an open and participatory review of ongoing and planned projects to ascertain the extent to which project formulation can be adapted to accommodate the principles outlined in this report.
link:http://www.irn.org/wcd/threegorges.shtml