Damn. Work at Xinglong Dam Begins
Friday, February 27, 2009 7:24A glimmer of hope is once again extinguished as the South to North transfer program shows that it is back on.
Perhaps too far down the path of face to turn back around, especially when 20 million migrant workers are on layoff, Work has started on Yangtze dam for China’s south-to-north water diversion project
Zhang Jiyao, chief of the Office for the South-to-North Water Diversion Project of the State Council, China’s Cabinet), announced the start of work at a launch ceremony
Zhang said the dam will cost 3.05 billion yuan (about 448 million U.S. dollars).
Xinglong Dam is designed mainly to improve irrigation over farmland on both banks of the Hanjiang River and shipping when the river is in dry season. It also has power generation and flood control functions. A total of 1,240 residents in Hubei Province will have to be moved to make way for the dam.
The dam will have spillways, infrastructure for navigation, turbo generators houses, lanes for fish passage through the dam [my emphasis], and linking bridges, according to the construction plan.
With the ability to divert 9.5 billion cubic meters of water on average a year, one can only hope it does not result in a further reduction in water levels downstream.
Project is set to be complete in 2013/ 2014…
