In a recent interview with South Wind Window, a popular Guangzhou-based
magazine, Guo Shuyan, a former vice-director of the Three Gorges
Project construction committee, said building the project's western
route would be "something like suicide" because the region's
environment is already "extremely fragile."
Of all three diversion routes, the western route is the only one that
would pump water from the Yangtze into the Yellow River valley, making
it "the most difficult water diversion project in the world." The
difficulty is exacerbated by numerous unsolved engineering challenges,
such as how to tunnel through high mountains in remote locations; modes
for construction at high altitudes (well above 3000 meters); and how to
transport water through a sub-zero environment.
According to Mr. Guo, a significant portion of the Three Gorges fund
could go to the south-north diversion project because it is having
difficulty raising the financing.
The Three Gorges Fund was set up by the central government in 2003 to raise funds for the Three Gorges dam. A government audit
of the US$15 billion project last year reported a "surplus" of US$5
billion after the fund collected US$7.77 billion from electricity
ratepayers and earned money by selling six of the dam's turbines to the Shanghai-listed Yangtze Power Company.
Originally, local governments were expected to put up financing for the
massive diversion scheme first and then the central government would
step in. But Mr. Guo, who now heads the National People's Congress
finance and economics committee, says that plan has "basically
collapsed," leaving the project authority scrounging for other sources
of financing. Meanwhile, based on the history of the east and central
routes, he expects construction costs to double.
So far the central government has raised US$1.6 billion for the
project's central route but still needs another US$18.4 billion to
complete the project, and that's not including the cost of water
treatment, says Mr. Guo. The original budget was US$10 billion.
Similarly for the western route, diverting water from three Yangtze
tributaries into the Yellow River was originally expected to cost
US$37.5 billion. By Mr. Guo's estimate, it could cost as much as US$75
billion.
Read the full article in Chinese here.
