Dateline Dispatches: Around the World in Ten Days
DAY FOUR Monday, 20 November 2000

Washington - Ankara

WASHINGTON DC, USA: Making the Transition

Amidst the worst election crisis in the last century, the WCD was able to tell the USA: Our results are final. After a recount, the outcome remains the same: Commissioners unanimously endorse the Report.

With no change in the White House in sight, transition within other DC institutions involved with dams appear well under way.

At the National Academy of Sciences, over one hundred NGOs, government representatives, lobbyists, regulators and national and global agency partners, discussed topics from how the Report might affect the Three Gorges Project in China to what it meant for dam removal and dam safety in the USA.

"Our federal licensing system has evolved significantly to more fairly assess the costs and benefits of hydropower, while attempting to balance all the benefits of freshwater resources, said Linda Church Ciocci, executive director of the National Hydropower Association, in a statement. She called the WCD Report more an "indictment of the legal, political and institutional structures" that lead to dams, than the creation of the physical dam structures that result.

Two US NGOs - Trout Unlimited and American Rivers - said the Report should prompt the new President and Congress to reassess federally owned dams in the US.

A coalition of 35 environmental and recreation organisations signed onto a letter endorsing the WCD recommendation that all existing federal dams have a periodic comprehensive re-evaluation of the facilities and performance of dams and more frequent (every 5-10 years) evaluation of dam operations.

"The US has been a world leader in building dams," said Margaret Bowman of American Rivers, noting 1,932 significant federal dams on record. "It is time that we become world leaders in managing them."

In London, World Bank President James Wolfensohn had said: "No country constructing a dam will want to ignore a report of this weight, the most complete that has ever been done." Four days later, over 120 World Bank staff and Members of the Board received overviews and analysis of the Report from three Commissioners, and offered pointed and constructive criticism in return.

ANKARA, TURKEY: Recommendations and Reactions

As the Report was launched in London, the media speculated on how this might affect dam projects in Turkey, especially the Ilisu Dam seeking British government support. Debate only intensified in the hours and days following publication.

While WCD braced for a sceptical reception at the centre of dam planning in Turkey, it found that, once it could cut through the myths and misunderstandings surrounding the Commission's work, a core audience was ready and willing to read, discuss and listen, even if it didn't always like what it heard.

At DSI, the state hydraulic agency, officials found the Report interesting, but often too negative, especially the strategic role of dams.

One participant was disappointed that in 20 of the 23 times the Aslantas Dam Case Study was mentioned it referred to negative impacts. Other participants indicated that everyone must learn to do things better and any report that helped to achieve this had to be useful.

Reactions came from roughly 100 people, including senior members of DSI, GAP, TRCOLD as well as NGOs and academics. DSI plans to review and respond to the Report in writing by early 2001.