China's massive water project to displace 220,000

Critics fear fund diversions noted in the Three Gorges Dam project may reprise

BEIJING, China -- China has to relocate 220,000 people to make way for a multi-billion dollar project it considers the only solution to a water crisis.

The project will involve diverting water from the flood-prone Yangtze River to the parched farmlands and cities of the north.

The State Council, or cabinet, has yet to approve the project but the Ministry of Water Resources will examine it in June, officials said.

China has not revealed the cost of the project nor how it would be funded.

But Finance Minister Xiang Huaicheng said on Tuesday part of a 50-billion yuan bond issue this year would be used.

State media have put the price tag at 140 billion yuan ($16.9 billion).

When completed, the project will transfer up to 48 billion cubic meters of water a year via three channels through eastern, central and western China.

The channels will link three of China's major rivers -- the Yangtze, Huai, and Yellow River.

Price of progress

Prime Minister Zhu Rongji, in a speech on China's five-year economic plan unveiled Monday at the National People's Congress, said that the water shortage could cause "serious implications" in the country's economic and social development.

Zhu expressed concern northern China is turning into a desert

Industrialization has dried up rivers, wells, and springs, affecting the supply of clean drinking water and the irrigation of farmlands.

Of China's 668 cities, 400 face water shortages. Some 700 million people in China drink contaminated water.

Countryside farmers have rioted over precious water supplies.

"Diversion of water from the south to the north will settle this problem," said Wang Guangqian, a professor in the hydro-electric power department of Beijing's Tsinghua University.

Social, environmental concerns

But critics of the project have raised fears that the project would lead to social displacement and corruption.

The previous $25-billion Three Gorges Dam project, started in 1992, saw the unemployment of 150,000 people who relocated to new towns, according to a 1999 TIME magazine report.

Three Gorges project officials said they have moved more than 250,000 of the 1.13 million people who must be resettled by 2009, to make way for the world's biggest hydroelectric and flood-control project.

Critics also say farmers would not be able to afford water prices that have to cover the expense of China's latest water project.

Officials said water would be priced according to how much individual provinces invest in the project.

Civil unrest over water erupted several times last year, including a deadly riot by villagers in the eastern province of Shandong in July after officials cut off water supplies from a reservoir they had used to irrigate crops.

Also last year, auditors found out that local officials used 470 million yuan ($57 million) from the relocation budget of the Three Gorges project to build hotels, start companies, buy cars, and pay salaries.

The Cultural Relics Association also raised concern that precious artifacts would be submerged once the Three Gorges Dam is completed in 2009, but said official response was slow in the seven years since the project began.

The latest water project, which would take at least 15 years, could also dry up the Yangtze River in 30 years, Chinese and foreign environmentalists predicted.

Zhang Chunyuan, member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference which advises parliament, remained optimistic.

"I am very confident the Chinese government will try every possible means to minimize corruption in the water diversion project."

Environmentalists are urging Beijing to take simpler steps like raising water prices and curbing rampant well-digging, instead of embarking on the project.

Zhu has urged industries to recycle 60 percent of their waste water.

But the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), which advises parliament, said "saving water cannot possibly reverse the trend of water shortage fundamentally."

Project history

The project was conceived 50 years ago by Chairman Mao Zedong.

It was revived last year after a severe drought.

The first section to be built will be the 1,150 km (720-mile) eastern route, which will piggyback on the Grand Canal -- the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368) waterway from the southeastern city of Hangzhou to Beijing.

The 1,246 km (780-mile) middle route will channel water from the Danjiangkou reservoir in central Hubei province northwards to Hebei and Henan provinces.

The project would raise the height of the reservoir by 13 meters (43 feet).

The eastern and central routes should be finished in 15 years. But further research is needed on the difficult high-mountain western route to link the Yangtze and Yellow rivers.

Reuters contributed to this report.

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