By Marcela Valente
Buenos Aires, Argentina, Apr. 10 (Tierramérica)—
The governments of Argentina and Paraguay have resolved to complete
the binational Yacyretá hydroelectric dam on the Paraná
River by 2007, operating at 60 percent of originally planned capacity.
Environmentalists fear that the expansion will increase the environmental
and social damages the mega-project has already caused.
Yacyretá was born out of a treaty signed in 1973, and the initial
commitment was for operations to begin in 1980, but was not inaugurated
until 1994.
According to the original project, the reservoir covering 944 square
miles would be maintained at 272 feet above sea level, but for the past
10 years the level has stood at around 249 meters.
“In order for the dam to produce at full potential, the waterfall
must be higher, as was originally defined. That is why the level must
be raised to 83 yards,” Alfredo Durán, communications director
of the Binational Yacyretá Enterprise (EBY), said.
The decision to increase the reservoir depth implies a series of new
construction projects at an estimated cost of $500 million. Argentine
President Néstor Kirchner and his Paraguayan counterpart Nicanor
Duarte Frutos gave the green light to these pending works in late February.
Both expressed their determination to complete the Yacyretá project,
but stressed that the hydroelectric dam — referred to as a “monument
to corruption” by former Argentine president Carlos Menem (1989-1999)
— must be managed with “transparency,” and so annulled
the standing million-dollar assessment contract that the two countries
had been paying for years.
A forum of more than 40 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from the
two countries, which are campaigning so that the Yacyretá project
will take responsibility for the environmental problems it creates and
not produce new ones, applauded the annulment but warned about other
costs in an open letter to Kirchner and Duarte Frutos.
“Raising the level of the reservoir to 83 yards above sea level
will have serious additional social and environmental impacts to those
already produced and for which reparations have not yet been made,”
say the NGOs in their statement.
“The cost of hydroelectric energy is much greater than was calculated
if the costs of repairing the damages caused are taken into account.”
A weak point in the plan for finalizing work on the project is the possibility
that there exists an underground connection of water between the reservoir
and the Iberá wetlands in the northern Argentine province of
Corrientes, just meters from the reservoir and covering 24,550 hectares.
Silvia González, coordinator of the wetlands program for the
Argentine Wildlife Foundation (Fundación Vida Silvestre), told
Tierramérica there is “uncertainty” with respect to
the causes of the increased water levels of the Iberá wetlands.
The foundation’s experts believe the phenomenon is related to “events”
at the Yacyretá.
“That isn’t true,” asserts EBY spokesman Durán,
based on reports from the Varsa company, which is conducting environmental
impact studies for the dam. The firm assures there is no such underground
connection between the reservoir and the wetlands, and that the latter
simply increases when there is more rainfall.
In fact, said Durán, there is currently a shortage of water in
the Iberá area due to drought.
The NGOs are demanding that the reservoir expansion plan include relocation
of human settlements and of wild flora and fauna from the area to be
flooded, and argue that these issues have been mishandled previously.
According to EBY, around 11,000 specimens of 110 species have been moved
to protected areas.
“The biomass clean-up that was to be made of the area before filling
the reservoir was insignificant,” Paraguayan journalist Ramón
Casco Carreras said. He is an economics columnist for the ABC Color
newspaper in his country and an opinion leader in economic and environmental
issues.
“The World Bank allowed that to happen, and then admitted its responsibility,”
which has led that institution and the Inter-American Development Bank
(IDB) “to be much more demanding” in terms of environmental
and social impacts of mega-projects, he said.
Casco estimates that the total number of people displaced by the Yacyretá
reaches 40,000, but noted that the delay in work on the project meant
that some cleared areas were repopulated when the flooding of the reservoir
did not reach them.
The EBY announced that new relocation efforts must be made due to the
increase in the reservoir level, and that 11,000 new homes will be built
for the displaced families.
The initial costs of the Yacyretá were calculated at around $1
billion, but Argentina has contracted a debt for the project that —
with interest — already reaches $10 billion, said Durán.
The new work on the mega-project is to be financed by the IDB and the
sales of electricity.
