The Tekeze Dam is another of Ethiopia’s hydropower projects.
By Menna Asrat
Hydroelectric power is clean, green and once built, the source of the energy is free.
However, human made structures such as dams have the potential to wreak havoc on the natural environment of people who’ve been plying their trade in their natural surroundings for many years.
The recently completed Gibe III Hydroelectric project is no different.
The livelihoods of more than half a million people can be severely affected, according to some experts.
Dams could disrupt natural resources and wildlife. The migration pattern and natural rhythm of fish could be disrupted, and plants can cause low dissolved oxygen levels in water.
But in the case of Gibe III, it’s now water, to coin a term, over a dam.
On December 17, at a ceremony held near the concrete edifice of the dam, the Gibe III Hydroelectric Power project was officially inaugurated by the Prime Minister, the culmination of years of planning and construction.
Construction on the dam began in 2007 and it became partially functional in August 2016, with eight out of 10 turbines starting to generate electricity.
However, according to many complaints filed with various bodies, the dam’s effects on the Omo River and Lake Turkana basin may jeopardize the livelihoods of people living on both sides of the Kenya-Ethiopia border.
The Gibe III construction was slated to end in 2011, but suffered delays that set it back by five years, in addition to allegations of environmental damage to the Omo River and the Lake Turkana basin. The construction took nearly a decade to complete. Those accusations were not far from the minds of the attendees, although they were not dwelt on in the celebrations.
“Although there were allegations that the dam would cause environmental damage, through job creation and irrigation schemes, it has greatly benefited local communities,” Prime Minister Hailemariam Desalegn remarked at the inauguration.
“There were issues of getting loans,” said one engineer close to the project. “Because of all the objections from different quarters, there weren’t as many loans available as needed. But we got the loans from the Chinese bank and were able to continue. There were also issues with the designs. When the digging began, the ground was found to be much rockier than was anticipated and a new design needed to be done.”
Gibe III is located around 450 km from Addis Abeba, at the boundary of Wolayita and Dawro Zones in the Southern Nations Nationalities and Peoples Regional State. It is now the second biggest hydropower project currently in Ethiopia. The installed capacity of the project is 1870 MW and its annual energy production is 6500 MW.
The dam was overshadowed by problems and controversies from the very beginning. The environmental objections to the dam poured in during its early stages from groups such as Friends of Lake Turkana (FoLT). FoLT is a Kenyan organization representing the indigenous groups in northwestern Kenya whose livelihoods are linked with Lake Turkana.
At the time, the African Development Bank (AfDB) was considered the most likely financier of the project, so the FoLT submitted a complaint to the bank’s Compliance Review and Mediation Unit, asking for the bank’s involvement with the dam to be investigated.
FoLT was backed in its complaint by International Rivers (formerly the International Rivers Network), an organization with decades of expertise in dams, and energy and water policy.
This was far from the only complaint. UNESCO also lodged complaints with the Ethiopian Government about the environmental impact of the dam. In December 2008, a Kenyan MP representing the Turkana central population suggested that Kenya should take a leaf out of Egypt’s book and use threats of war if the building of the dam was not halted.
Source – Addis Fortune (Addis Ababa)