Indian Wildlife Club Forum

Dams Coming Down

Three years after the Central government virtually abandoned the mega project of inter-linking of rivers, the government of Bihar is coming out with a proposal to link various river basins within the state.

Gujarat, too, is toying with a similar idea. What’s more, Tamil Nadu chief minister M Karunanidhi recently said that the linking of the southern rivers — Godavari, Krishna and Cauvery — could be taken up immediately...............

Satish C Jha, chairman, special task force on Bihar and a member of PM’s Economic Advisory Council, told SundayET that a better understanding with Nepal was key to control flood in the state and also evolve a better system of irrigation................

Former head of the task force on inter-linking of rivers Suresh Prabhu argued that it should be a two-way approach. “What Bihar is doing now is a bottom-up approach. We need that too. Inter-linking of rivers should be done in an intergrated manner involving both augmentation and conservation,” said Mr Prabhu.

Source : http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Bihar_takes_lead_in_reviving_river_inter-linking_project/articleshow/2094715.cms

Linking of Godavari, Krishna and Cauvery could be taken up

Linking of Godavari, Krishna and Cauvery could be taken up immediately, The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Karunanidhi told "The Hindu". 
Apart from being a water scarce state, Tamil Nadu suffered from acute ground water deficiency. 

The National Water Development Agency had already completed a study of the peninsular component of interlinking rivers of India.  Since the study had concluded that it was technically possible and economically viable to transfer water from surplus river basins to deficient ones, it was time that the next step was taken towards interlinking, the CM said.

The Chief Minister wanted the project of interlinking peninsular rivers included and funded as part of the agriculture strategy for the 11th plan. 

 Judge declares river dried up by diversion to LA revived

   The city of Los Angeles has sufficiently restored
a stretch of river along the Sierra Nevada it siphoned off decades ago
by aqueduct and no longer has to pay fines of $5,000 a day, a judge
ruled Wednesday.

Inyo County Superior Court Judge Lee Cooper said the city has revived
a 62-mile section of the lower Owens River that was left essentially
dry in 1913 when its flows were diverted to the Los Angeles Aqueduct.

"I can now officially declare that the lower Owens River is a river,"
Cooper said.

Water was directed back to the riverbed in December, marking a
concession in an infamous water war between Los Angeles and the valley
200 miles north of the city.

Ecologists said the revived river was making a remarkable recovery and
reported seeing birds, fish, and plants in the channel.

The judge had imposed the $5,000 fine per day in July 2005 when he
grew frustrated by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power’s
long-delayed plan to restore the river.

During a hearing Wednesday, Cooper also approved an agreement between
the DWP, Inyo County officials, residents and environmentalists that
spells out requirements for the city to keep the water flowing. The
judge warned he would impose fines under the deal if the city didn’t
meet its obligations.

"The restoration of the river has been a long-term goal of Inyo County
and we are heartened that river’s recovery is well under way," Jim
Bilyeu, chairman of the county’s board of supervisors, said in a
statement.

Source: U.S. Water News Online, July 2007

CSE invites you to a two-day media briefing workshop to understand the condition of India’s rivers, examine existing river cleaning programmes, learn from them, and discuss strategies that could bring our rivers back to life. The Yamuna river will be taken as a representative case. The workshop will bring together river pollution experts, civil society representatives and government officials to debate and demystify key issues.

Date: June 14-15, 2007
Venue: India Habitat Centre, New Delhi

Eligibility criteria:
- The workshop is only open to journalists and media professionals
- Seats are limited. We have the resources to support the travel and accommodation of a few candidates on a first-come, first-served basis. Therefore, please apply immediately

To apply, e-mail/fax your resume to:
Shachi Chaturvedi <shachi@cseindia.org>
Fax:  011-29955879

Last date for applying: June 1, 2007

For more information >>
http://www.cseindia.org/programme/media/yamuna_workshop.htm

The Kerala and Tamil Nadu governments are at loggerheads over the 100-year-old Mullaperiyar Dam in Kerala's Idukki district.

Tamil Nadu wants the water level in the dam raised to route more water to five of its southern districts, a demand upheld by the Supreme Court. But Kerala says, the aging dam cannot withstand the pressure and invited a Navy diving team to check the dam's structural integrity. But the decision has angered Tamil Nadu .

Tamil Nadu plans to increase the height of the dam from the present 136 metre to 142. It also wants to raise the height of an associated dam to 152 metre. However, Kerala says that the dam is too old and can't stand any more pressure.

"Yury Trutnev, Russia's natural resources minister said, Russia is still in two minds about whether to revive a controversial Soviet-era plan to divert Siberian rivers to the arid Central Asia." (MOSCOW, October 12 RIA Novosti)

European Union directive defines every water catchment area as a distinct management unit and rules out water transfers from one area to another. On the 18th of June, 2004  Spain repealed the project to divert water from the river basin, that had been included in the Hydrological Plan pushed forward by the previous Popular Party government and justified by the lack of water in some areas of Spain.

In China, Three Gorges Dam Project is about to be complete.  After the rise in water level, the estimate of displaced may cros  1.4 Million People. 

 Courtesy WaterWatch@yahoogroups.com

Ramaswamy Iyer, former chief secretary in the water resources ministry said that there is an inherent conflict of the flood control objective with the other objective of trying to maximize hydro-power and irrigation in dams.

Iyer said while flood control demands that dams allow adequate space to receive flood flows, the objective of maximizing hydro-power potential means that water level in dams is kept as high as possible.

''As there is greater pressure to increase power generation, the objective of flood control gets lesser attention. This can lead to a situation when water has to be released suddenly on a large scale leading to disastrous flash floods,'' he said. Iyer added that the changing pattern of monsoon has put the last nail in the coffin of that fraudulent Interlinking of Rivers proposal, as those basins identified as "deficit" by National water development Authority have witnessed floods while those that have been marked as "surplus" have shown shortfall."

( Quoted in a meeting on flash floods and dams organized by Intercultural resources in collaboration with South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers and People )

"Almost every year, floods ravage various states. According to news reports in most of the cases, the flood disaster has been caused by panic release of water from dams since inflow to the reservoir was very high. Maharashtra and Gujarat, both hit by floods this year, together have more than half of the country's 4,500 large dams, so it is a moot point whether dams provide protection from flood.

Flood, a natural phenomenon, becomes a disaster when large quantities of water arrive very quickly or do not recede quickly. Rainwater comes too quickly either because of unprecedented rainfall and/or due to deforestation that causes very fast arrival of water in the main rivers. A large dam can "control" flood only if the reservoir has sufficient empty capacity to absorb the sudden arrival of water. But in practice, reservoirs are never emptied in anticipation of flood because water from the reservoir is required for irrigation or power generation. (If it is a low rainfall year
and the reservoir is empty, the flow will merely fill the reservoir and the downstream river will get no water at all). When the flood does arrive, the sluices are opened to save the dam and people, assured of protection from flood, who have occupied the flood plain below the dam, suffer because of the sudden release of water from the reservoir.

Thus, while large dams may offer flood management advantages in a limited temporal or spatial context, they also create larger magnitude problems that are not generally recognized. Flood management and the performance of India's large dams for flood "control", irrigation and power generation over the past few decades needs urgent and transparent review."

-Maj Gen S.G.Vombatkere (Retd) is a military engineer holding a PhD in Structural Engineering from I.I.T., Madras.
E-mail: sgvombatkere@hotmail. com