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The Chalillo Dam Project Threatens Belize's Macal River Valley
Rainforest dam row goes before law lords
Privy council urged to halt construction of power project in Belize
Paul Brown, environment correspondent
Wednesday December 3, 2003
The Guardian
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Five law lords sitting in Downing Street today will be asked to stop the building of a dam in Belize which could wipe out one of the most important wildlife sites in central America.
It is the first time that the privy council, the highest court in the Commonwealth, has been asked to adjudicate on an environmental issue. Normally it is used as the appeal court of last resort in death penalty cases.
The Chalillo dam will flood 1,000 hectares (2,500 acres) of pristine forest - the home of the rare scarlet macaw, of which 200 remain, big cats, jaguars, ocelots and puma, and one frog species not found anywhere else.
The dam is to generate 7MW of electricity, enough to power three large hotels, and is being built by the Canadian company Fortis, which has a monopoly over electricity distribution in Belize. Locals already pay three times as much for power as their neighbours in Mexico.
Amec, a London-based civil engineering company, compiled an environmental assessment for the site which has been heavily criticised. The privy council is being asked to find that this report was improperly approved by the Belize government, and that construction should be halted. The appeal is being mounted by Bacongo, the Belize association of non-government organisations, which has the support of a number of celebrities, including Harrison Ford, and Robert F Kennedy Jr, an attorney at the Washington-based Natural Resources Defence Council.
A British scientist, Alastair Rogers, who was head of a Natural History Museum mission looking at the environmental consequences of a dam, is shocked that the project was given the go-ahead.
In a letter to the chief environmental officer of Belize, Ismael Fabro, he said: "It is clear that constructing a dam at Chalillo would cause major, irreversible, negative environmental impacts of national and international significance - and that no effective mitigation measures would be possible.
"The project would destroy the vast majority of a critical and unique habitat, threaten ing the last viable populations of many vulnerable and endangered wildlife species in Belize."
It would also destroy some important unexcavated Mayan archaeological sites.
Amec has been criticised for its geological report on the dam site, which said the bedrock was granite although subsequently it proved to be sandstone. This has put back construction by several months and may increase the project's �20m cost.
Sharon Matola, the director of Belize Zoo, who is in London for the hearing, said: "This is an environmental disaster for Belize, the geology is all wrong for dam building and puts the people downstream in danger. This is an active seismic area with a visible faultline less than a mile away.
"But that is not the only reason this project is bad. Fortis has a deal which means that whatever the price of electricity from this dam, the company can sell it on to the people of Belize, even if they could get power cheaper elsewhere."
Currently most of Belize's power comes from Mexico and the government wants to ensure security of supply. The environmental group wants electricity to be generated from waste products from the sugar cane industry, which it says would produce three times as much electricity as the proposed dam and provide half the country's needs.
In a statement, Amec said it had produced a professional, highly detailed report that had been debated thoroughly by government and independent bodies since it was submitted. The report was for information only and made no recommendations.
The key geological issue examined was the strength of the foundation rock for the proposed dam - the strength of the rock below the soil and the weathered surface material. This was able to support pressure many times higher than would be applied by the dam. Amec added that it was no longer involved in the project.
Fortis staff involved in the case were in meetings yesterday and not available. The hearing is expected to last two days.
Dec. 2, 2003. 01:00 AM
Canada under fire over dam
Ottawa agency complicit in Belize plan that will endanger local people and environment, writes Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Toronto Star
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1070278315548&call_pageid=968256290204&col=968350116795
As Paul Martin prepares to take the reins as Canada's new prime minister in Ottawa this month, Canada's current foreign environmental policies will be on trial in London.
Tomorrow, a panel of five Privy Councillors, Britain's highest court of appeal, will hear a case brought by Belizean environmentalists and business owners against the approval of Canadian-backed plans to build a 50-metre-high concrete hydroelectric dam in the rainforests of this small Central American country.
If completed, the Chalillo dam would not only flood one of the world's most important wilderness areas and drown irreplaceable traces of the ancient Maya civilization, but will put 12,000 people living downstream at risk.
The project sponsor, Newfoundland-based Fortis, Inc., monopoly owner of Belize's electricity utility, has close ties to the governments in Ottawa and Newfoundland, and just bought up distribution utilities in Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia.
Two years ago, Fortis rammed approval of the project through using a flawed environmental assessment that was secretly paid for by Canada's foreign aid arm, the Canadian International Development Agency.
This deal was part of CIDA's private-sector branch "CIDA, Inc.," whose real mission appears to be "poverty" �alleviation for some of Canada's largest and most powerful companies � the Halliburtons of Canada.
In papers submitted to the court, Fortis now admits that the taxpayer-sponsored report was wrong about the geological foundations underpinning the dam.
The report said the dam would be built on solid granite, when, in fact, the site is made of fractured sandstones and shales � a dam designed on the basis of the CIDA report could collapse and cause disaster downstream.
When CIDA, Inc. was confronted with this, and other flaws in its report, last year on CBC's Disclosure, the agency denied it did anything wrong.
Now the dam is under construction, and the consequences of CIDA's flawed assessment are becoming evident.
The low flow of the river, reaching just knee deep in the rainy season, makes it apparent that the dam will not provide a fraction of the electricity CIDA's report projects.
Contractors at the site have found no granite at the site to crush as an ingredient to make concrete for the dam.
In addition, locals say that seismic tremors caused a 20-metre deep gaping hole to open at the site, and construction workers drilled through to water flowing underground.
Experts warn that this could drain the dam's reservoir before it is filled.
And, most troubling, the continued uncertainty about the dam's foundations has raised the spectre of dam collapse, and potential liability for Fortis and the Canadian government. Regrettably, CIDA continues to bury its head in the sand, and Fortis seems undeterred.
That's because Fortis seems to be protected.
A 50-year contract with the Belizean government guarantees the company at least $200 million U.S. in electricity sales from the dam, by forcing the dam's high costs onto Belizean ratepayers.
Already, Belizeans pay the highest electricity rates of any country in Central America � nearly two times more than their neighbours in Guatemala or Mexico, even though half of their electricity is imported at low cost from Mexico.
Tomorrow, the Privy Council will be asked to stop the dam's construction until proper studies are completed and Belizeans' right to a fair and impartial public hearing is upheld.
But Canada should not wait for the Privy Council's decision to live up its responsibilities and repudiate past mistakes.
"Poverty alleviation" should not be a cloak for lopsided contracts that provide huge profits to a Canadian company and endanger and further impoverish the people of Belize.
The new prime minister will be off to a good start if his minister for international development ends CIDA's complicity with Fortis, recalls its flawed taxpayer-sponsored report and works to protect the people of Belize, as well as the tapirs, scarlet macaws and jaguars that are at risk from this unjustifiable dam.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is an environment activist and author whose articles have appeared in The New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, The Wall Street Journal, Esquire, the Washington Post and numerous other publications.
CONTENT COPYRIGHT THE GUARDIAN AND THE TORONTO STAR. THIS CONTENT IS INTENDED SOLELY FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSES.
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