There are some things in life you're just not supposed to do. Eat something you found on the floor, for instance. Take candy from a baby. Build a hydroelectric dam inside a nature reserve.
And yet, the folks at local power company 30-4 Gia Lai have requested permission to do exactly that. According to Tuoi Tre, the provincial People's Committee of Gia Lai recently instructed authorities to conduct research on a proposed plan for two hydroelectric dams to be built within the Kon Chu Rang national reserve, a protected tract of land, and report back with their findings.
If approved, the Suoi Say 1 and Suoi Say 2 dams would require 25 hectares of land within the reserve and would harness the power of the area's large streams, some of which have waterfalls as tall as 54 meters, to produce a combined 40 megawatts. Tuoi Tre refers to the area in which the dams would be constructed as “strictly protected”.
While Nguyen An, director of 30-4 Gia Lai, maintains the dam won't affect local residents, enivironmentalists were obviously not jazzed by the idea. Still, Trinh Viet Ty, who heads up the Kon Chu Rang reserve, had both pros and cons to contribute to the discussion.
“From a conservationist’s perspective, it is obvious that nobody would support the building of such a construction inside a bio-reserve,” Ty told Tuoi Tre. “However, the investment channeled into the area by the state is currently very limited.”
Ah, yes, an important point: if given the green light, 30-4 Gia Lai's project would immediately receive VND1.2 trillion (US$53.56 million) of investment, and once complete, stand to generate VND160 billion (US$7.14 million) a year. With the opportunity to build roads through this peaceful, untouched slice of nature, Ty suggested that perhaps the newly paved paths which would accompany these dams might help rangers travel more efficiently from one side of the forest to the other. If, you know, there still is a forest.
[Photo via Flickr user The World Fish Center]
