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June 21st, 2008
Via Forbes, another article detailing how residents of China’s barren northern villages, still gasping from the effects of a severe drought, have been told it is their national duty to “safeguard the Olympics” by sacrificing their own meager water supplies. As the article notes:
“…The Olympic rowing park was created last year by diverting a flowing river–at a cost of $57 million–to hide the cracks in the bone-dry riverbeds of the Chaobai River. And that’s only the tip of Beijing’s hydro-engineering ambitions.
At the end of May, the government announced the completion of an emergency canal, which will divert 300 million cubic meters of water from Shijiazhuang, the capital of neighboring Hebei province, to Beijing in order to bolster water supplies for the Olympics when there is expected to be a 30% increase in the demand.
And that canal is just a slice of the country’s grandiose scheme to divert water from the wet southern provinces to arid northern ones. In the end, the diversion project will transfer 44.8 billion cubic meters of water, at a cost of $62 billion, from the Yangtze River along three channels to the thirsty north by 2050.
Beijing was banking on completion of the entire central route before the Olympics, but numerous delays have resulted in the nearby water-stressed provinces of Hebei and Shanxi being handed the role of sole providers.
Farmers in these areas have been first to suffer. Some were told to plant corn instead of rice in an initiative expected to save more than 100 million tons of water for Beijing. Incomes took a beating. One hectare of rice can generate a profit of $2,625, but one hectare of corn can only earn a farmer $1,620.
Tens of thousands have been told to leave their land to make way for the emergency diversion project. Most have received compensation, but environmentalists say it is not enough to temper the long-term impact of lost livelihoods.
“The project is taking away the water rights of local Hebei citizens,” says Wen Bo, the head of China operations for the California-based Pacific Environment group.
“It is very much like land grabbing. The compensation is very little and not all of it is finding its way to the people as it has to go through local officials first.”
Wen argues that enough water during the Olympics could have easily been guaranteed by imposing limits on the amount Beijing residents are allowed to use, similar to curbs on the number of cars allowed on the roads during the Games.
Some environmentalists accuse the government of using the Olympics as a smokescreen to hurry along public works projects that are riddled with doubts. For the Chinese government, the Olympics are the perfect excuse to get things done while tapping into national pride.
So far, there has been little protest from rural citizens losing their water. But back in February, An Qiyuan, the former Communist Party chief of Shaanxi province, said publicly that the diversion project threatened the lives of millions of poor farmers.
It may be that some are willing to go without for a time so that China is able to show its best face to the world. But environmentalists have also criticized the whole south-north diversion project as flawed, likely to deliver polluted water at a high price. Come September, the government will face the bigger test of whether it can deliver.”