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Dams harmful, World Bank panel says
The commission urges consulting energy experts for alternatives

by Mike Madden, Statesman Journal - 21 November 2000

WASHINGTON - Dams have brought drinking water, electricity and irrigation to
millions of people worldwide, but the damage they have done to the environment and the communities they have destroyed overshadows their benefits, an international commission set up by the World Bank reported Monday.

Would-be dam builders as well as governments contemplating dam removal such as the United States should seek alternatives to large dams and consult environmental experts, people who would be affected by the dam and other interested parties before deciding what to do with them, the World Commission on Dams said.

Besides the harm dams can do, many of them have cost far more than they were supposed to or failed to produce the benefits that their supporters promised, said commission Chairman Kader Asmal, South Africa’s minister for education and its former forestry and water minister.

“In too many cases, an unacceptable and often unnecessary price has been paid to secure those benefits, especially in social and environmental terms, by people displaced, by communities downstream, by taxpayers and by the natural environment,” the commission wrote in summarizing its nearly 400-page report.

The commission, funded by advocacy groups, hydropower companies and governmental agencies including the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, did not examine the merits of individual dams, and its members would not answer questions about what should be done with specific projects.

But it did offer a framework for evaluating future dam proposals and existing dams, including four Snake River dams that environmentalists say should be removed to help salmon recovery in the Pacific Northwest.

The suggestions:

•Secure public acceptance through an open and broad-based decision-making process.

•Assess needs for food, water and energy and explore alternatives to building a dam.

•Re-evaluate existing dams.

•Minimize dams’ impacts on rivers and livelihoods in their areas.

•Negotiate with people who live near proposed dam sites to protect their rights in the planning process.

•Establish clear criteria to ensure compliance with promises made during the dam-building process.

•Share rivers that span international borders.

In the United States, the commission found, there are far more proposals to remove dams than there are to build new ones, and it urged federal agencies and environmental organizations and industry groups to follow its suggestions in dealing with them.

The Bureau of Reclamation declined to comment on the report, referring calls to Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt’s office, where a spokeswoman said officials had not read the report yet and could not comment on it.

Though commission members said they hoped their report would not be used for “propaganda,” environmental organizations wasted little time in citing its findings in a petition asking “the new president and the 107th Congress,” neither of which have taken office yet, to review the thousands of dams dotting rivers across the country.

“The U.S. has been a world leader in building dams,” Margaret Bowman of American Rivers said in a statement accompanying the petition. “It is time that we become world leaders in managing them.”

The commission studied eight dams in detail in preparing its report, including the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River. It noted the impact freshwater dams can have on fish, which may bolster calls to breach the Snake River dams for salmon’s sake.

Most of the 12 commission members were veteran international development experts, and its makeup tilted slightly to the left. But the panel did include two representatives of the world hydropower industry, and it backed the report unanimously.

The commission will spend the next few months touring world capitals to tout its report before disbanding, leaving implementation up to the report’s audience.

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