Equator HD TV today about a dam on the Yangtze River displacing millions and demolishing cities. [View All]

[madfloridian]

I had to get more information about it since our great informative news media is so good on world things. I found out it is called the Three Gorges Dam.

We watch this channel more than any other now. It went into the cities and showed the faces of the 2 million or so who were in forced migration to live in govenment housing. I sat there and cried for their loss, and for the damage that is bound to come to the environment. An example, a city of over 50,000 is being bulldozed to the ground. The rubble will be underwater.

I had a strange feeling at the seemingly easy acceptance of these people facing the destruction of all they had known, and the movement to the unknown. It is like they took it in stride, something that was inevitable. A chill went through me. I see many getting like that here in our country. Maybe the spirit to fight gets lost against the machine.

Equator's Voom cameras took a high definition tour through the gorges with the high peaks on the side of that part of the river that would disappear forever along with the cities beside it. It was breathtaking in its beauty.

There is not much at the Equator Channel website about it.

http://www.hifihdtv.ca/equator.php

And not much at the Voom site either.

http://www.voom.tv/equatorhd.html

I did find a webpage about the dam.

The show was from 2006.

Three Gorges Dam - The Great Wall Across the Yangtze

When completed, the $25 billion Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River will be the largest hydroelectric dam in the world. With an installed generating capacity of 18,200 MW, the dam will span more than two kilometers across, and tower 185 meters above, the world’s third longest river. Its reservoir will stretch over 600 kilometers upstream and force the displacement of more than 1.3 million people. Construction began in 1994 and is scheduled for completion by 2009. Construction on the dam itself was completed in May 2006.

..."The project has been plagued by massive corruption problems, spiraling costs, technological problems, human rights violations and resettlement difficulties. One million people have been displaced by the dam as of 2006; many are living under poor conditions with no recourse to address outstanding problems with compensation or resettlement. Said one peasant from Kai county, "We have been to the county government many times demanding officials to solve our problems, but they said this was almost impossible. They have threatened us with arrest if we appeal for help from higher government offices."

The environmental impacts of the project are extensive. The submergence of hundreds of factories, mines and waste dumps, and the presence of massive industrial centers upstream are creating serious pollution problems in the reservoir and the tributaries of the Yangtze. For five months every year when high water levels are lowered to accommodate the summer floods, a festering bog of effluent, silt, industrial pollutants and rubbish will remain in the previously submerged areas. This will create a breeding ground for flies, mosquitoes, bacteria and parasites, threatening the health of surrounding populations.

I found another article from the Washington Post recently. Sounds like a very mixed blessing.

China's Massive New Dam Passes Its First Real Test

I am amazed at how that show and others we have watched on there have given a more human face, a more concern for the environment than anything we have seen on our media in a long time. We just realized we have not turned on CNN or MSNBC in ages.