The Wall Street Journal-20080129-Politics - Economics- Pact May Ease Impact Of Three Gorges Dam

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Politics & Economics: Pact May Ease Impact Of Three Gorges Dam

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BEIJING -- China is expected to sign an agreement for a feasibility study on how to manage flood-plain risks downstream from the Three Gorges Dam, the latest move to address development pitfalls with the world's biggest hydropower project.

The state-owned company that owns and manages the dam, China Yangtze River Three Gorges Project Development Corp., is in the process of finalizing an agreement with the U.S. environmental group the Nature Conservancy for the study to help minimize the ecological impact of the dam on the Yangtze River, the Nature Conservancy said. The two also have signed an agreement for broad cooperation on researching ecologically better ways to manage four more dams being built or planned further upstream from the Three Gorges on the upper reaches of the Yangtze, known as the Jingsha River.

The government recently has been trying to deal with the impact of the Three Gorges Dam, which was built to provide clean electricity and to tame annual floods blamed for tens of thousands of deaths in the past century. It appears the goal of flood control needs to be rethought, according to people involved in the planned study.

The aim is to restore the seasonal flow of the river by letting more water pass through dams instead of holding it in reservoirs. That could increase the risk of floods but also restore depleted lakes and rivers.

Experts said it is difficult to use the dam to prevent floods. A flood in 1998 that killed thousands of people was caused mainly by soil erosion and deforestation along tributaries that enter the Yangtze downstream from the dam, scientists say.

The Nature Conservancy first broached the idea of cooperating on the Yangtze River dams in 2005, when Henry Paulson, now U.S. Treasury secretary but then chairman of the Nature Conservancy as well as chief executive of Goldman Sachs Group Inc., wrote a letter to Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.

Reducing the water-retention role of the four dams being built upstream from the Three Gorges Dam also could generate $1 billion more in annual electricity-generation revenue that could be put toward warning systems, flood insurance and ecological protection in the areas downstream, Nature Conservancy officials said. Chinese water- management practices have basically relied on more dams and embankments to channel flood waters.

A Three Gorges Project Development spokesman confirmed the existing agreement but declined to comment further.

Any plan resulting from cooperation with the Nature Conservancy would need consent from other government agencies before changes could be implemented.

The Nature Conservancy, one of the biggest U.S. environmental groups, has been both praised and criticized for its cooperation with governments and corporations. Nature Conservancy officials said they don't support dams but acknowledge China needs the electricity and said China needs to manage them better. "These dams will be built," said the Nature Conservancy's Yangtze River project manager, Guo Qiaoyu. "We must use our experience and knowledge to reduce their ecological impact."

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Kersten Zhang contributed to this article.