News Categories Environment COLBUN DYNAMITES SOUTHERN CHILE’S SAN PEDRO RIVER
| COLBUN DYNAMITES SOUTHERN CHILE’S SAN PEDRO RIVER |
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| Written by Benjamin Witte | |
| Wednesday, 15 July 2009 | |
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Chilean Utility Breaks Ground On Controversial Hydroelectric Project “Colbún S.A. informs you that starting Wednesday, July 15 at 1 p.m., we will begin construction on the San Pedro Hydroelectric Plant with excavation work that will involve the use of explosives,” the company announced. “The blasting will take place every day at the same time, i.e. at 1 p.m., and will continue throughout the project’s construction phase,” the press release went on to say. Colbún, Chile’s third leading electricity provider after Endesa and AES Gener, hopes to have the US$200 million facility ready by 2012. Once completed, the facility – which will include a 12-kilometer, 300-hectare reservoir – promises to add 144 MW of electricity to Chile’s Central Electricity Grid, or SIC. For the project’s many opponents the news couldn’t have been any worse. Roberto Coronado, a tourism operator in nearby Panguipulli, learned about the dynamiting Tuesday when he received a call directly from a Colbún official. “It was one of the worst things I’d heard in my entire life,” he told the Patagonia Times. “My family and I have been connected to the river our entire lives. I swear I cried yesterday afternoon, because this is just too much.” Coronado, who leads rafting and kayak trips on the San Pedro, said the project not only ruins his business, but will ultimately “kill” the river as well. “It’s indescribable,” he said. “I’m not a parent yet, but I would have loved my (future) children to be able to travel freely along the river. Now that’s not going to happen. The river is so so beautiful. Luckily I had the opportunity to get to know it, because now it’s going to die.” Regional environmental authorities approved the project last October despite vocal opposition by local residents, environmental groups, indigenous organizations and tourism operators (PT, April 24). Like other large-scale dam projects, said the project’s many opponents, the San Pedro facility will have a major environmental impact by flooding native forestland and altering the natural flow of the river. Colbún’s own Environmental Impact Study (EIS) pointed out that unlike other Chilean rivers, which can be dominated by introduced salmonids (trout and salmon), the San Pedro boasts a high percentage of native species: 96 percent. One of those is the tollo valdiviano (Diplomystes camposensis), an extremely rare species of catfish that was not discovered until 1987 and is thought to exist nowhere else on the planet. According to the scientist who discovered the species, University of Kansas professor Gloria Arratía, the dam project could contribute to the animal’s eventual extinction. Critics also described the project as economically short-sighted. Certainly it will generate jobs during the estimated three years it will take Colbún to complete the power plant. But once in operation the facility will provide only a handful of permanent positions. Its negative impact on the area’s already-established reputation as an attractive tourist destination, in contrast, could very well be lasting, they warned. “Once the project is finished, the state, the mayor and the citizens themselves are going to have to ask themselves, ‘OK, what do we do now?’” said former Panguipulli Mayor Alejandro Koehler. “By that time the rivers will already be tapped. We’ll have dams and thousands of miles of power lines that will blight the landscape. Things just won’t be the same.” Colbún, a Chilean-owned company that generates approximately 27 percent of the SIC’s total electricity, is no stranger to controversy – particularly because of its current partnership with the country’s leading electricity provider, Italian-owned Endesa. In 2006 the two energy companies launched a joint-venture called HidroAysén, through which they plan to build five huge dams along far southern Chile’s Baker and Pascua rivers. The dams – if approved by environmental authorities – would boast an installed capacity of 2,750 MW, equivalent to roughly 20 percent of the total electricity currently available in Chile. The plan sparked an immediate backlash from environmental and citizens groups both in Chile and abroad. Under the banner “Patagonia sin Represas” (Patagonia without Dams), they have waged a high-profile campaign, arguing that the dams will ruin the pristine Baker and Pascua Rivers and open up the Chilean Patagonia wilderness to further industrial exploitation. The project would also give Colbún and Endesa a near monopoly in the electricity market, say HidroAysén’s numerous detractors. By Benjamin Witte ( This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it ) |
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| Last Updated ( Wednesday, 15 July 2009 ) |
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