Funding and Lending Problems with China’s Three Gorges Dam Project

Funding and Lending Problems with China’s Three Gorges Dam Project

The Three Gorges Project continues to leave a wake of environmental and social transgressions. An assortment of activists and over 45 international groups, including the International Rivers Network and Sierra Club, have fought the project and all its detrimental attributes (Lammers 1). But because of the predetermination of its construction, certain consequences associated with the Three Gorges Dam are inevitable, especially those resulting from the inundation zones.

Oppositely, there remain a variety of consequences, specifically concerning the impact of relocation and resettlement, which could be minimized and even avoided if the necessary steps were taken. Unfortunately, the current mixture of economics and politics between the State Development Bank of China and its lenders provides no safe guards against such transgression. Despite protests few if any changes have been made to rectify them. In the following passage, I will give a short background of the dam’s history and consequences, disclose China’s current resettlement efforts, and explain why little change has been made to correct these matters. In the end, I will provide an alternative solution and hopefully focus needed attention to the most influential aspect of the Three Gorges Project: funding and lending. The Three Gorges Dam and Reservoir is questionably the largest engineering feat and construction project ever undertaken. The project originated as a solution to China’s long-standing problems with mainland flood control (Shen 1).

Soon after, the plans were altered to incorporated a giant shipping lane to the reservoir and 26 hydroelectric generators to the dam (Sly 1). The project, which resides on China’s Yangtze river, has entered the second phase of completion. Following the diversion of normal river flow and traffic to a side channel, major construction of the coffer dam, which will reportedly span more than a mile in width, has ensued (Sklar 4). And major is no exaggeration considering the Chinese government is attempting to dam the world’s second largest river. The Three Gorges dam is estimated to be over 600 feet high and result in a reservoir of over 400 miles in length (Lammers 1). The resources and materials to be consumed, beyond the 29 billion dollar cost estimate, are to include: the "3.6 billion cubic feet of rock and soil... to be excavated, 1 billion cubic feet of embankment fill... moved, 900 million cubic feet of plain and reinforced concrete... to be poured, and nearly 300,000 tons of metal structures.