ICOLD members - Colombia

Bogotá, January 22, 2001

Re.: Comité Colombiano de Presas Hidráulicas. Comments to the WCD Report

1. The fundamental flaw of the report is that, the staff, that wrote the report, accepted two basic principles:

1. All dams cause important damage to the environment
2. All dams cause social impacts

These two principles are false.

Most dams cause minor damage to the environment, in many cases, so slight, as to be negligible.

A few dams cause important damage, but steps can be taken to avoid major impacts.

Most dams cause no social impacts at all.

So, dams should be separated into impacting dams and unimpacting dams. Only the first should be subject to the full guidelines.

2. There are generalizations that cannot apply to a field as full of diversity as the one related to dams.

3. The staff apparently did not include a man experienced in flood management. It is a highly complex field.

4. Most existing dams were designed before environment impact studies became fashionable. The developed countries have survived in spite of the unacceptable impacts. So the developing world (Latin America, Africa and Asia) is going to have the development of water resources encumbered by a set of guidelines that were not applied to existing dams.

This will result in more hunger, more poverty and more disease.

COMITÉ COLOMBIANO DE PRESAS HIDRAULICAS

Carlos S. Ospina