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Senegal: Manantali Dam
Senegal: Manantali Dam
Date distributed (ymd): 971117
Document reposted by APIC
+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++
Region: West Africa
Issue Areas: +economy/development+
Summary Contents:
The International Rivers Network lays out evidence of
extensive negative environmental consequences from the
proposed Manantali Dam in the Senegal River Valley and calls
for expressions of concern to proposed funders, including the
African Development Bank.
+++++++++++++++++end profile++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Manantali Dam Changes Will Make a Bad Situation Worse
by Lori Pottinger
The following article appeared in the October 1997 edition of
World Rivers Review, published by International Rivers
Network.
The Manantali Dam in Africa's Senegal River Valley is a
"poster child" of bad dams. When it was built in the 1980s, it
put an end to 1,000 years of successful flood-recession
farming; created major economic impacts for downstream
farmers, fishers and herders; harmed fisheries, ground water
resources and riverine forests, and turned an area with a low
incidence of water-borne disease into one of the
worst-infected in Africa. Besides all the problems it caused,
it also failed to provide promised benefits. The conversion
from flood-recession farming (i.e., the cultivation of
riverbank areas enriched by silt from retreating annual
floods) to irrigated agriculture has been much slower and
costlier than expected. In addition, irrigated agriculture has
actually been less productive than flood-recession f arming,
and contributes to water-borne diseases via irrigation canals
and water-storage areas. The project has yet to produce any
power, and navigation benefits have been virtually nil.
In late June, despite serious environmental and socioeconomic
concerns raised by a host of critics, the World Bank approved
a US$38 million loan to help finance installation and
operation of the dam's turbines. (The Bank was not a lender
for the original construction of the dam.) The plan is to
increase power output at the expense of other uses, with
hydropower having first priority when reservoir levels fall.
Critics were especially concerned that power production (which
has been increased to 200 MW from the originally planned 76
MW) is moving ahead with no guarantee that project authorities
will implement a much-needed, comprehensive water management
plan. A well-designed plan would reduce incidence of disease
and re-create a regular "flood" large enough to restore
downstream livelihoods and ecosystems. Although the Bank says
it supports the need for such a plan, it took few positive
steps toward this goal before approving the loan, promising
only to study the matter and consult with stakeholders while
the power infrastructure is installed. It created no incentive
and no funding mechanism to redistribute water for non-power
uses, did not link power start-up to preparation of a water
use plan, and provided no mechanism for timely and effective
consultation with affected persons. In fact, Bank staff met
with a few hundred people in 16 communities to discuss the
project, when more than 100,000 households could be affected
by it.
The Bank's ability to push project authorities to adopt a more
comprehensive water-management plan will be much reduced after
power production begins. The Bank's plan is apparently to
endorse, with token changes, an existing dam-management plan
that does not even meet minimum agreed-upon flood inundation
goals, much less address health or ecological impacts.
Better water-management planning for health is an urgent need
that the Bank was well aware of when it approved the loan.
Water-related diseases such as malaria and schistosomiasis
have increased dramatically in the valley since the Manantali
and the downstream Diama dams were built, and now claim 8,000
lives a year. It is estimated that adequate measures to manage
flows from the dam could reduce the number of deaths by 2,500.
The increase in schistosomiasis results from the creation of
bodies of fresh water, such as irrigation canals and ponds,
that breed disease-bearing snails previously controlled by
seasonal fluctuations and salt inflows. A distinguished panel
chaired by WHO recommended a water-management plan to manage
these diseases. The Bank will rely instead on a program of
pier construction (to reduce water contact), monitoring and
drug-treatment. There is little reason to think that this
program will succeed in reducing water contact.
Another major failing in the project is the meager amount of
water it will require for downstream needs. Before the dam
disrupted the natural flooding cycle, tens if not hundreds of
thousands of hectares were fished, farmed and browsed the
flood recession zone. Dam construction reduced this
significantly, and, as the Bank admits, the power project will
reduce annual flooding by another 15,000 hectares annually
even under optimistic rainfall assumptions. A long-standing
official planning target is to allow for a minimum of 50,000
hectares to be farmed with reasonable frequency. The Bank
agreed to a plan that will result in an average flood
cultivation of only 30,000 hectares, and that for only two out
of three years. It makes no provision at all to restore ground
water or forest resources or the 350,000 hectares of
downstream fish habitat that was destroyed by the dam.
"The lesson of experience with large, Bank-funded dams is that
this approach to mitigation--build now, plan later--is doomed
to failure," says Maike Rademaker of the German NGO Urgewald.
"This project as approved with condemn hundreds of thousands
of Senegal River Valley people to avoidable impoverishment,
nutrition deficiencies and disease."
Co-financing for the US$445 million turbine retrofit is either
committed or expected from the European Union, Canada,
Germany, France, the Nordic Development Fund and the African
Development Bank (AfDB), EIB, Islamic Development Bank, FADES,
the West African Development Bank and local governments.
Citing the health concerns raised above, the Nordic
Development Fund declined to give expected support for the
project this summer. The AfDB is expected to make a decision
later this year, possibly mid-November.
What You Can Do
Write to the AfDB or other funders to express your concern.
AfDB: Omar Kabbaj, President, African Development Bank,
African Development Fund and Chairman, board of directors, 01
B.P. 1387, Abidjan 01, Cote d'Ivoire, Fax: 225.20.4909; Tel:
225.20.4444. Call or email Lori Pottinger for a list of other
donor addresses.
Lori Pottinger, Director, Southern Africa Program,
International Rivers Network
1847 Berkeley Way, Berkeley, California 94703, USA
Tel. (510) 848 1155 Fax (510) 848 1008
Web: http://www.irn.org
E-mail: lori@irn.org
Additional information on this issue, as well as on dam
projects in Namibia and Lesotho, can be found on the IRN
website at http://www.irn.org/programs/safrica
This material is being reposted for wider distribution by the
Africa Policy Information Center (APIC), the educational
affiliate of the Washington Office on Africa. APIC's primary
objective is to widen the policy debate in the United States
around African issues and the U.S. role in Africa, by
concentrating on providing accessible policy-relevant
information and analysis usable by a wide range of groups and
individuals.
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