The Three Gorges Dam Project

By Mitchel F. Bloom, 9-15-02.

Rationale for the group to research the Three Gorges Dam Project:

Currently, and for the next seven years, the Three Gorges Dam will be under construction. It is the largest construction project in the world. As such, it would lend itself to a systems approach because of its complexity, integration of human with technological systems and tight coupling required by time-dependent phases of the project. My proposal to the International Society of System Sciences (ISSS) was that I would like to organize a group of members to visit the dam site and then travel by boat up the Yangtze River to Chongqing. Our plan would be to interview engineers and managers, focus on the problems they are facing in building the dam, find out how they are solving these problems, and finally determine whether they are using a systems approach in their planning process. After collecting our information, we would present our findings the following week to the ISSS that was holding their annual conference in Shanghai from August 3^rd to the 5^th.

Preparation for trip:

Each member of the group will receive by email a set of documents and web site references of background materials pertaining to the construction of the project prior to the journey so they could be familiar with the project. Our mission would be to both tour the site and to interview engineers and managers. We also prepared a list of questions, translated into Chinese, and sent ahead in order that our interviewees would be able to collect any information required to answer our questions.

Controversial nature of our research:

Recognizing that the project is highly controversial from both an ecological and social perspective, we were aware that we must be careful in our interviews to avoid confrontation with our hosts and yet maintain a "systems approach." That is, we would try to view the construction of the dam in the framework of systems theory. That means, are the engineers and administrators taking into account not only all the engineering, social and environmental components of the project, but are they also considering the interaction between the components as the different phases of the project develop over time?

Because the reservoir created by the dam will impact on the cities and the environment along its length, we wanted to be able to interview administrators and residents of a town that will be relocated because of the dam. That we were able to do. In fact, nearly all our requests were granted. We received red carpet treatment. We visited secure sites that ordinary tourists would not be able to enter. We took pictures of the dam, of workers, of our interviewees, asked questions freely and got answers to all of our questions from our interviewees, even the prickly ones about relocation and corruption. As far as we could tell, there were no restrictions on our group, which was evidence of how far China has come in recent years. We tried to think of why we were on such a loose leash but our answers were pure speculation.

Collection of information:

The kinds of information collected include observations of all types: of the work, the workers, labor conditions, logistics, housing of workers, logistics of materials, quality of manpower and materials; photos of the dam and its progress; interviews with the project managers and engineers; and collection of published and internet materials on the dam. Tours and photos of towns that will be submerged and relocation schemes were further information that we collected.

Organization of information:

At the conclusion of our trip we collected much information and many different points of view which we organized into a coherent whole. Our role as researchers was to determine the extent to which the Three Rivers Gorge Dam organization is using a systems approach in the planning and implementation of the project. What are the major construction problems that the managers and engineers are faced with and how are they attempting to solve those problems? What tools and techniques are they using? When we go beyond the construction phase of the project and look at the projected agricultural, energy, environmental and social impacts, then what steps are being taken by the managers to anticipate problems and prevent undesirable consequences?

Presentation of findings:

At our presentation at the ISSS conference in Shanghai, we used a panel format. One by one each of our team members got up and describing his/her aspect of the project. Henry Alberts discussed a systems look at the relationships of the components of the dam project. His wife, Renee Alberts, a specialist in family therapy, provided her analysis of the consequences to the relocatees being wrenched out of their ancestral homes. Diane LaFlamme talked about the environmental impacts of the dam. Finally, Satu Teerinkangas discussed the consequences of inundation of archeological artifacts and the diminishing of scenic views resulting from the reservoir. After the panel presented their findings, I opened the discussion to the audience, consisting of 50% Westerners and 50% Chinese, for questions which went on for over an hour.

Experience of the group members in China:

Our research group has had very limited experience in China. One couple, the Alberts, visited China more than ten years ago. Our student member, Satu, visited more recently and spent time in China with her family as she was growing up. None of us make any pretence to be experts on China or on the technology of dam building. Our research is limited to our interviews of nine hours, our observations as we toured the dam site and surrounding areas, our judgments based on our own specialties (engineering, science, management, social science and system science), extensive readings from the literature and downloads from the internet.

Accusations:

Many accusations were made against the dam project and we wish to address them. Accusations were often not supported by valid data; were one-sided in that they did not present opposing views; assumed nothing could be done to meet the criticisms; and finally were contradictory in nature, especially regarding relocation of residents, the level of water in the dam, the electricity generated and sold as opposed to the demand for electricity.

Questions and answers:

The following are the questions we asked and the answers we received from our interviews with engineers, managers and administrators of the dam project. All questions were translated to Chinese and distributed to the respondents a week before the interviews. They respondents answered all questions in Chinese which were translated to English by our guides. No tape recorders were used at the interviews; but detailed notes were taken by the group and the guides.

Is the dam able to withstand floods?

The dam can withstand a flood of 100 year frequency (71,000 cubic meters per second) but not a flood of 1000 year frequency (120,000 cubic meters per second). If a big flood is expected, we would lower the level of the dam to allow room for the larger than normal flow. Upstream dams will be developed; an entire dam system will be built consisting of four or five dams with reservoirs whose levels can be adjusted to flow conditions. The National Flood Control Office in the provincial capitol,Wuhan, downstream from the dam will manage the system of flood control by controlling the sluice gates that allow additional water to pass through the dam. The amount of water in all the reservoirs will be five billion cubic meters, consisting first of three dams, then four or five dams later on. The Three Gorges Project (TGP) improves the ability to control floods from the 10 year flood to the 100 year flood.

What are the main factors to prevent failure of the dam and to achieve success?

This question took our respondents, two engineers, by surprise. It was not one of the written questions. Their answer was three-fold. First, there was a long period of preparation and research work, especially geological research at the dam site. A lot of technical research went into the design of the locks, the ship lift, the concrete matrix (due to the use of crushed granite instead of sand, gravel and pebbles), and construction research as a result of the huge scale of the dam. Second, the engineers have very good cost control. The budget was 20 billion yuen but the actual construction costs will be 18 billion yuen. Finally, the managers and engineers made sure every small project performed by contractors had an insurance guarantee including foreign companies (operating under joint ventures with Chinese companies). Contract and project management was something they learned on the job and not in school.

Are you able to keep on schedule? This question arose from the Three Rivers Network assertion that the project was falling behind schedule on the one hand and that it was being rushed to completion without proper attention to detail on the other. The accusation was that the schedule was moved up from completion in 2013 to completion in 2009 for political reasons.

The construction completion date of 2013 never appeared on the schedule. The plan was always 2009. By 2007 all construction work will be completed and the level of the reservoir will go from 135 meters to 156 meters. By 2009, the level will rise from 156 meters to 175 meters, its maximum height. Normal operation of all the generators will be by the year 2013 with all twenty-six generators producing a total of 18,200 megawatts, 25% of China’s current capacity. The flood control level of the dam will be at 145 meters when the dam level is lowered in the spring with the anticipation of summer rains.

What about cracks in the dam?

Cracks really happened but they are a minor problem; the quality is reliable. Cracks, however, are being repaired. Tests showed that the concrete composed of a crushed granite matrix is stronger than normal concrete and is stable chemically. On the other hand, it should be noted the matrix has not been tested over long time periods.

Is it true that the quality of the generators may not be high because never before has China built such large generators? (This kind of criticism, that what the Chinese are doing will be likely to fail because it has never been done before or done on such a large scale, was made at every step of the way in the project. Yet the Chinese engineers have been able to overcome difficult obstacles at every stage in the project.)

According to the Three Gorges Project official document[1], “The TGP power station is planned to be equipped with 26 sets of hydro turbine generators having a rated capacity of 700 megawatts each.” The engineer interviewed said that of the twenty-six generators only twelve will be built by China; fourteen will be manufactured on contract by foreign companies such as GE of Canada, Voith and Siemens of Germany, Alstom of France and ABB of Switzerland. The official document also said China will receive technology transfer from France of know-how to perform 30% of the manufacturing work on the 14 units.

What about silt accumulation in the generators? What steps have been taken to maintain the operating efficiency and effectiveness of the generators? What about cracks in the generators?

The intake to the generators is at a height of 108 meters. The sluice gates are a 90 meters to open to flush out the silt and there is another gate at 75 meters between generators number 6 and 7. If silt accumulates at the base of the dam, dredging can be used if the flushing does not get rid of the silt. Physical model tests were conducted and the tests showed that the silt could be flushed out. The engineer does not think it is a problem. The philosophy of operating the dam will be to impound the clear and discharge the turbid[2]. Regarding cracks in the generators, the engineer stated that cracks don’t seem to be a problem; it is not unusual to have them; and cracks were found in all foreign generators.

What about silt accumulation at Chongqing

According to the engineer, this may pose a problem because, due to the natural rise of the river from the dam to Chongqing, the city is ony 10 to 20 meters higher than the planned flooding level of the reservoir. But according to the official TGP document, “sedimentation will not bring any serious adverse impacts to the navigation and power generation, whether in the site area or in the backwater region (Chongqing)…adverse impact can be solved by combined measures as optimizing the reservoir operation (raising and lowering the water level), proper river training…(and) engineering measures.”[3]

Will there be an excess of electricity generated because demand has fallen as a result of many government factories along the river being closed?

First, the price of electricity will be competitive with coal. Secondly, demand is expected to go up because living standards of relocatees will be going up, i.e., more more air conditioners, various appliances, TV’s, etc. Finally, as we found out in the interview with the economic development administrator of the new city of Zigui, industry is being offered tax breaks to relocate to the new cities on the Yangtze. It is expected that sales of electricity will be sufficient to compensate for the closure of government factories.

Will you be able to recoup your investment through the sales of electricity?

Yes. Even when the level of the dam is lowered for flood control, the central government will compensate the TGP for any electricity production loss as a result of decreasing the pressure head from 113 meters to 52 meters.[4]

What happens to the thousands of workers once the dam is built?

There are currently 20,000 workers on the dam. In the initial phases of construction, there were 30,000 workers. The workers belong to contractors and are not employees of the TGP. After the Three Gorges Dam is built, the contractors will have much work to do on tributary dams, although they will have to compete for the work. The hydroelectric market (for projects and workers) is up for the next 20 years. Workers will find employment with the firms that win the contracts.

Is it true that the dam is built on a geological unstable area that is prone to landslides and earthquakes? Will the huge body of water in the reservoir be likely to cause earthquakes and landslips? What steps have been taken to avoid natural disasters resulting from earthquakes and landslips?

The dam is built on a huge anticline, a 700 million year old granite formation which is 50 to 60 kilometres long. The dam was designed to withstand an earthquake of magnitude of 7.0 on the Richter scale while only a 6.0 is expected. As for the reservoir causing earthquakes, they will be small, not strong enough to damage the dam. Regarding landslips, there are some unstable places along the Yangtze River but they are 30 to 40 kilometres up-river from the dam. If they occur, they will not affect the dam. In addition, from 1998, we have budgeted two billion yuen (US$242 million)to do geological treatment far away from the dam.

Questions on the ship-lift. (The ship-lift is a large box into which ships of 3000 tons or less, together with water, can be lifted 600 feet in a half hour from the bottom to the top of the dam.) Is it true that the ship-lift will be the largest in the world? Is the technology to operate the ship-lift complicated and as difficult to operate as the Germans say? Is the construction of the ship-lift on schedule? How long will the shipping on the river be suspended while the ship-lift is being constructed? What steps are being taken to speed up the passage of ships up the Yangtze?

It is true that the ship-lift will be the largest in the world whether one considers ship’s tonnage, total lift weight or lift height. The most important issue is safety, especially the reliability of the safety-locking device.[5]

The ship-lift is not the main method of getting ships through the Three Gorges Dam; the locks are a secondary method. The locks, which can handle ships up to 10,000 tons, take 2.5 hours to transport a ship 600 feet in elevation. The ship-lift can lift a smaller vessel of 3000 tons in a half hour and a total weight of the ship, the water and the lift up to 11,800 tons. The TGP have experimented on several models plus the experience collected on the Jin Jan Jian River with a smaller 300 ton ship-lift. The Germans have been studying the problem of the ship-lift for 10 years but as yet have not settled on a solution. The project is currently open to design bid from several countries.

The problem is the four points on the corners of the box need to be lifted up at the same time and a safety lock has to be activated if the lift is stuck so that it cannot collapse. The problem is with the control system, with the software and with the supporting cables. The designers are not sure of all the problems connected with scaling from an 8000-ton ship-lift in Belgium to 11,800 tons in the TGP.

The construction of the ship-lift is still on schedule. It does not have to be completed until 2009. Shipping on the river will not have to be suspended while the ship-lift is being constructed because the locks will be in operation as early as 2003.

We have heard of cases of corruption and bribery regarding money appropriated for construction and relocation of people. Is it true that in the year 2000, 97 officials were convicted of embezzlement from the dam fund? What has been their punishment? Is it true that a number of culprits have vanished with the money? How can this happen?

The answer to this question came from an administrator who is a specialist in relocation.[6] He has been involved with the job of relocation since 1986. He graduated from the Yellow River Hydraulic College. He is now a manager of personnel who do relocation; has met with foreign journalists; is responsible for relocating all the people displaced in the immediate dam area. He has four people working under him and has so far relocated 12,353 people. (Over 1.1 million people living along the river will ultimately have to be resettled as a result of the TGP.)[7] He began his interview with a speech he prepared during which he did not want to be interrupted with questions. Later on he attempted to answer all our questions. He began with subject of bribery and corruption.

“It is an open system. Each family knows how much it is supposed to get (in terms of compensation). Supervising this is easy. A special office does the supervising, independent of local government, but out of Beijing. An official from the central government is in charge of relocation. Cooperation with provincial officals in Hubei County and Chongqing Municipality are good. Any corruption was at the local level. There is a three-step process: report to supervisor; follow-up on relocatee; independent audit. Nobody can interfere with this system. ”

As for corruption, 1.25% of revenues from the sales of electricity from the TGP are allocated to the relocates. If embezzlers are caught, they are punished according to the law, i.e., 1,000,000 yuen (approximately $125,000) means the death penalty.[8] Penalties are proportional to the amount embezzled or bribes received.

How have the culprits vanished? They have changed their ID (not difficult to obtain forged documents), emigrated abroad, first to Hong Kong then to Canada. (With an investment of $400,000 Canadian dollars ($252,000 U.S.), he can be accepted into Canada as an investor-immigrant.)

As for the 97 officials convicted of embezzlement from the dam fund in year 2000, he did not believe the figure and asked the source of our information. We replied, the internet.

What actions are you taking to ensure that the reservoir is not polluted by the land which will be inundated? What steps are being taken to clean up the hillsides and the soil from industrial and human pollution that will be under water when the reservoir has risen to its planned height of 175 meters (574 feet) by year 2009?

We will be investing 40 billion yuan (US$4.8 billion) to improve the environment, the soil, the water, for reforestation and to treat wastewater. Water treatment facilities are being improved. People are getting money for planting trees.

According to a 1993 UN report, 3000 pollution points have been found in the reservoir area. The government has demanded that the quality of water will be improved relative that before the TGP. All land along the banks of the Yangtze River has been cleared to 135 meters elevation of the reservoir at the dam. We now must clear the land to the height of 175 meters, the maximum height of the reservoir at the dam.

The cost of clearing and cleaning the hillsides has been fully estimated. For example, toilets and pig houses will be buried more than two meters. Hospital and factory waste will be burned. Not less than 30% of the cleared hillsides will be checked by officials of the province and county. The central government will check more than 20% of the hillsides independently before the water floods the reservoir. The work of clearing and cleaning started by the end of 2001.

According to the TGP document, “The fundamental measures to protect water quality are to treat pollution sources according to the national environmental protection laws. The Chinese government takes water quality protection of large rivers and lakes as the most important task. The State Council has made a decision that all industry pollution sources must be treated to reach a discharge standard according to the environment protection requirement before 2000. A number of small paper mills which discharge heavy pollution water have already been closed and various large wastewater treatment plants have been under construction or planned to be constructed in Chongqing city, Wanxian city, Fuling city and Yichang city. On the basis of wastewater reaching discharge standard, the cost used to treat the additional pollution induced by the reservoir operation will be financed by TGP.”[9]

It should be noted that on our trip up the Yangtze, we saw many places on the river banks that had large catchments of coal, the products of mines that will be flooded, waiting for shipment. These surely will have to be cleaned up.

Dr. Maxiyang concluded, “According to our experience, it looks to be a hard job. Each local government has been assigned its area to clean up. We are confident that every place can accomplish the job on time.”[10]

What is the number of people who will have to be relocated? What sort of farmland are you moving the farmers to? Will the land be level or steep hillsides? Will the soil be rich or filled with rocks? Will they have enough land to feed themselves?

In answering these questions, Dr. Maxiyang also discussed the quality of housing of the urban relocatees, the question of removal of gravesites, an important issue in a society that worships its ancestors, and the compensation to farmers. He did not always answer our questions specifically but provided a lot of information on the general topic.

He stated that the relocatees must be compensated. Their new homes will be an improvement over their old homes, especially for city, town and village dwellers. They will have a choice. They can take the money and move to another city entirely or they can obtain a new flat in a newly built city.

Farmers are offered land, equal in amount to their present land, in another location. The new land could be at a higher elevation than their present farms or it could be a great distance away. If it is at a higher elevation, and the slope is greater than 25 degrees, the government has offered to pay them to plant tea, orange and pine trees to hold the soil on the steep hillsides (and not rice crops) that would provide income for them in the initial period after moving. A farmer that plants more than 50 trees will receive a bonus. A second method of compensating farmers is to lend them money at no interest to get them started in the new location.

Regarding pollution on the new land, Dr. Maxiyang said that in the Three Gorges area, farmers use much less chemical fertilizer and that he prefers to buy his vegetables on which was applied natural fertilizer as opposed to chemical fertilizer. He also stated that farmers will receive bonuses for reporting pollution to the authorities.

On the subject of urban relocation, the older people are much less enthusiastic about moving to the new cities than the young. The old are attached to their traditional family homes in which they have lived for generations. The graves of their ancestors are buried nearby in plots that will be inundated by the reservoir. The government has promised to compensate the relocatees for grave removal if death has occurred within the last ten years. The social scientists on our team expect that the issue of leaving the graves of ancestors to be flooded may cause psychological trauma to the older people within eighteen months after relocation. The government is now encouraging cremation because of the hard work of removing graves.

As for the young people, they are more enthusiastic to move to a new city, to a new flat in which there are more rooms and floor area. We visited the model city of new Zigui and saw for ourselves the new apartment buildings, government offices, shopping areas, streets and businesses. We also toured older towns that will be inundated and an older town, Yichang, downstream from the dam that will not be flooded, whose streets were dirty, whose marketplace emitted foul odors, whose stream was filled with garbage. Our guide told us that this was the old China. The difference between the new city and the older ones in the quality of the urban environment was striking-- clean wide streets, wide plazas, modern apartment buildings, art work and new shopping centers.

Another reason the young people are interested in relocating is that for students in relocating families, they can get into university with lower entrance scores and a reduction of 15% in tuition fees.

Summing up:

These questions and their answers formed the basis for the audience discussion that followed our panel presentation. Our conclusion was that the engineers and managers of the TGP are indeed using a systems approach in their execution of the project. They are well aware of the potential problems in building the dam and filling the reservoir. They know all about silt, earthquakes, landslides, shoreline pollution, relocation of people and production of electricity. They have plans to make the TGP work for the benefit of all the stakeholders. What we do not know at this time is whether there will be resources and the political will to carry out the plans. Only time will tell.

With regard to the unrelenting criticisms posted on the internet that the project will fail, we have this to say. Despite the huge scale and the difficult technical and social challenges posed by the TGP, the Chinese engineers have been able to overcome the obstacles at each phase of the project. But that does not mean that the criticisms were invalid or useless. What the critics did was to focus the engineers and administrators on problems which they might have ignored or treated with less attention. As a result of the criticisms, management was forced to test out their assumptions with detailed physical models, bring in outside experts, allocate funding where it was insufficient or entirely absent, and consult with affected stakeholders before plans were fixed in place. Thus the role of the critics and their use of the internet to arouse public opinion would seem to have had a beneficial and countering effect on the traditional Chinese practice of top-down decision-making in the case of the Three Gorges Dam Project.

[1] Three Gorges Project, China Yangtze Three Gorges Project Development Corporation, (CTGPC), 1999, p. 20.

[6] Dr. Maxiyang, interview, TGP Hotel, July 27, 2002.

[8] Zhen Qi Fu, Economic Development Administrator, New Zigui, interview, teahouse in New Zigui, July 28, 2002.

[10] Dr. Maxiyang interview, TGP Hotel, July 27, 2002.