The Three Gorges Dam Is it REALLY a clean, renewable energy source?

The reasons that the Chinese government wanted to build the dam was to…. create hydroelectricity, a cleaner alternative to coal. control the flooding downstream on the Yangtze. increase the depth of the river making it better for trading further inland.

Water rushing through the turbines turns them and creates electricity. Sounds like pretty clean energy to me… What’s so wrong with that?

The Dam blocks a lot of silt that would have otherwise flowed downstream. This causes the silt to build up behind the dam… It could block the sluice gates. Causing additional flooding upstream. The Reservoir becomes more shallow.

Ships won’t be able to sail on some of the now shallow sections.

Garbage that washes downstream collects behind the dam… Approximately ten million tons of plastic bags, bottles, animal corpses, trees, and other trash is kept from flowing out to sea…

Industrial waste building up behind the dam is a problem. More than 256 billion gallons of raw sewage are dumped into the Yangtze yearly.

The reservoir flooded 16,000 abandoned factories, mines, dumps and potential toxic waste sites.

Think about how animals are to survive in this… Endangered species, such as the River Dolphin, are threatened! Pollutants in the water cause the oxygen level to drop, causing fish to die.

Fishing is important in this area as a food source!

Millions of residents of the Three Gorges Dam area rely on the Yangtze River as their ONLY water source. 42% of China’s sewage discharge is dumped here. Pollution has increased 73% in the last 50 years. 45% of ALL of China’s industrial waste is dumped here. “…used to be so clear that you could see a pen sink to the bottom. Now … it’s not fit for drinking.” ~Dai Qing

Hepatitis A and Dysentery incident rates are 50% higher here than national average. E-Coli Bacteria is rampant Money was spent to clean waste water treatment plants and dump sites prior to flooding…. The dam flooded the sewage systems in Wanxian, Wan County. It’s 160 times more polluted than drinking water standards. The water is now Cancerous!

They had to cut down huge forests to create the dam… The tree roots hold down the soil… The steepness of the hills and gorge doesn’t help…. Results: Landslides!!!!

Documents and news reports released by the Chinese government are consistently more positive than those from environmental activists and news reporters from abroad. Government says: "Geological disasters in this area have been effectively controlled" (Wang Xiaofeng, deputy director of Three Gorges Project Construction Committee). Critics say: "They're not truthfully reflecting a serious situation. The government is not being responsible to business or to China" (Chinese writer Dai Qing).

You Decide… Was creating the dam for a cleaner energy source worth it?

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