Ethiopia's Renaissance Dam - A Mega-Dam With Potentially Mega-Consequences
By Haydar Yousif, 3 December 2012
Analysis
Without greater oversight, Ethiopia's secretive new dam could have
disastrous environmental, social and political impacts.
While Egypt was undergoing dramatic political changes last year, Ethiopia
was secretly moving to unveil "Project X" - a huge hydropower dam it intends
to build on the Blue Nile, 40 km from the Sudanese border.
Political commentators, environmental experts and hydrologists have all
voiced concerns about the dam's ecological impact, the strain it might place
on relations between the three eastern Nile nations, and the financial
burden of this mega-dam on Ethiopian citizens.
Now renamed the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, the project (due for
completion by 2015) is set to become the largest hydroelectric power plant
in Africa. The scale of the project is staggering: the plant will be capable
of producing almost double the electricity of Aswan High Dam in Egypt, while
its 63 billion cubic metre (bcm) reservoir is double the size of Ethiopia's
largest natural lake. Crucially for Ethiopia's Nile neighbours, the filling
of this huge reservoir is also likely to greatly reduce the flow of water to
Egypt and Sudan for several years, and could even permanently alter the
amount of water those countries are able to draw from the river.
Details trickling through
The planning and implementation of this project has all been decided behind
closed doors. Its $4.8 billion contract was awarded without competitive
bidding, for example, to Salini Costruttori, an Italian firm favoured by the
ruling party; Salini is also building the controversial Gibe III Dam on
Ethiopia's Omo River.
Furthermore, the nature of the project was kept under wraps until after site
preparation had already begun, to the great surprise of regional
governments, Nile planning agencies, and Ethiopia's Western donors. It was
especially shocking to Norwegian agencies who were working with the
Ethiopian government on a similar project for the same stretch of the Nile,
now made obsolete by the Renaissance Dam.
This level of official opacity has worryingly prevailed beyond the initial
announcement of the project. Expert analysis that would normally accompany
such a titanic project has either not been undertaken or kept
characteristically secret. No environmental assessment is publicly available
for the project. And no steps were taken before its launch to openly discuss
the dam's impacts with downstream Nile neighbours Egypt and Sudan.
Do the environmental and social plans hold water?
The consequences for Ethiopia's downstream neighbours could potentially be
catastrophic. The Renaissance Dam's reservoir will hold back nearly one and
a half times the average annual flow of the Blue Nile. Filling the reservoir
- which could take 3 to 5 years - will drastically affect the downstream
nations' agriculture, electricity and water supply. Evaporative losses from
the dam's reservoir could be as much as 3 billion cubic metres per year.
The dam will also retain silt. The Ethiopian government argues that this
will be a net positive as it will increase the lifetime of other dams
downstream, particularly in Sudan where, for example, the Roseires Dam has
been nearly incapacitated by sedimentation. But what about the life
expectancy of the Renaissance Dam itself? This is a serious issue for the
dam's viability, and there are no known plans for watershed management or
soil conservation to address it. In addition, the retention of silt by the
dam reservoir will dramatically reduce the fertility of soils downstream.
Sediment-free water released from dams also increases erosion downstream,
which can lead to riverbed deepening and a reduction in groundwater
recharge.
Some have predicted even more calamitous consequences of the dam's
construction. The Grand Renaissance Dam site is in the Great African Rift
Valley near the Afar Depression, an area in which tectonic turmoil is so
great it could, according to some accounts, eventually tear the continent in
two. The dam could be at risk from damage by earthquakes, yet no one knows
if it has even been analysed for this risk, or the largest earthquake it is
being designed to withstand. The failure of such a huge structure puts the
more than 100 million people living downstream at risk.
On top of that risk is that of 'reservoir induced seismicity'. A dam with a
reservoir as large as this is not just vulnerable to seismic events - it can
cause them. Scientists believe that there have been more than 100 instances
on six continents of large reservoirs inducing earthquakes. The most serious
to date was China's devastating magnitude 7.9 earthquake in 2008, which some
experts believe was induced by Zipingpu Dam.
Holding back the tide of criticism
However, some of the most pressing concerns regarding the dam's construction
are political. Although its timing coincided with Egypt's political
upheaval, the sudden unveiling of the project nevertheless resulted in an
outcry. Egypt's primary fears are a reduction of its main water supply from
the Nile, and diminished nutrients and sediment essential for agriculture.
Towards the end of the late Prime Minister Meles Zenawi's rule, Ethiopia
adopted a more aggressive stance over the Nile, moving swiftly to build a
number of large hydropower dams. However, tension in the region regarding
control of the Nile waters has not all be centred on Ethiopia. In May 2010,
five upstream Nile states (Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda and Tanzania)
signed a Cooperative Framework Agreement (CFA) to access more water from the
Nile. The move was strongly opposed by Egypt, which brandished a
colonial-era treaty from 1929 asserting its exclusive rights to the Nile's
water supply.
With the Renaissance Dam, these tensions seemed to be coming to a head.
Following its announcement in March 2011, Egyptian authorities were quick to
lobby international support and strongly hinted that a military response was
not deemed disproportionate to protect such a vital resource. Indeed,
Wikileaks recently released documents detailing a planned Egyptian attack on
the dam from Sudan.
However, attitudes appear to have since softened, and dialogue was opened
last month between Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan. In a bid to allay Egypt's
wrath, the Ethiopian government proposed an International Panel of Experts
(IPoE) to review and assess the dam's impacts on downstream neighbours. The
panel of ten consists of two members from each of the three countries
eastern Nile countries, plus four international experts. Their names have
not been released and their meetings are behind closed doors, but they are
expected to announce their findings four months from now. This seems to have
placated Ethiopia's neighbours for now. Egypt has toned down its opposition
to the dam, while President Omar al-Bashir of Sudan has even pledged
Sudanese support for the project.
Yet whatever the IPoE's findings, the Ethiopian government seems adamant the
dam will continue. In September 2012, the Ethiopian Ministry of Foreign
Affairs declared that Ethiopia would never halt or slow the construction of
the dam due to external pressure, calling into question the significance of
the panel. Needless to say, many in Sudan and Egypt still have serious
concerns about the project.
Whatever the outcome of political arbitration, it remains irresponsible for
Ethiopia to build Africa's biggest hydropower project, on its most
contentious river, with no public access to critical information about the
dam's impacts - a flawed process which can hardly result in a sustainable
project. If the Ethiopian government is serious about maintaining good
relations with its Nile neighbours, and if it truly wishes to develop
projects that will carry its people and the broader region into prosperity,
it must begin by allowing some light to penetrate this secretive development
scheme.
Haydar Yousif is a Sudanese hydrologist who has worked for 35 years on water
issues on the Nile.
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Received on Tue Dec 04 2012 - 12:02:37 EST
