ENVIRONMENT: Latin American waterway could cause floods, drought, warns study

By Pratap Chatterjee Reprint | | Print |

Pratap Chatterjee

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 24 1995 (IPS) - A plan by five Latin American countries to deepen and straighten the Paraguay river could result in floods, drought, and shrinking grasslands that hurt the cattle industry, a new study warns.

The study uses mathematical models to calculate the impact of Hydrovia — a 1.3-billion-dollar series of projects that would allow cargo-carrying ships to travel 3,400 kms up the Parana river from Nueva Palmira in Uruguay, through Argentina, to the Paraguay river, which flows through Brazil and Paraguay.

The study — ‘The Hydrologic and Environmental Impact of the Parana-Paraguay Waterway on the Pantanal of Mato Grosso, Brazil’ — was conducted by Victor Miguel Ponce, civil engineering professor at San Diego University in California.

Its conclusions are to be raised by environment and social activist groups at a Dec. 5 meeting with officials of the five governments in Punta del Este, Uruguay. The five countries include Paraguay, Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, and Uruguay.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF), Brazil, is among the 300 environmental groups that have spoken out against Hydrovia.

The project will “unleash a process of changes in all the region’s wildlife. There (will) be a reduction of fish and birds,” says Eduardo Martins of WWF.

The cities of Asuncion, Paraguay’s capital, and Corrientes in Argentina would be severely affected if the projects go ahead, says Ponce, who warns there could be major flooding at the upper Parana river in February or March.

He says water runoff from the Paraguay river basin could also cause floods in June or July in Corrientes, while local river runoff could cause additional flooding in December. Ponce also says the changes caused by straightening and deepening the river could have a major impact on cattle-ranching, the most important economic activity in the region.

Between three and eight million cattle have historically grazed the 128,000 sq. kms of Pantanal, the world’s largest wetland system. The Pantanal is home to jaguars, giant ant-eaters, caymans, marsh deer, giant otters, an estimated 650 species of birds, 240 varieties of fish and more than 90,000 types of plants. It soaks up billions of litres of water a year, regulating rivers and preventing flooding.

Local activists also say indigenous groups like the Ofaie- Xavantes and the Xeta, which are already close to extinction, will be badly affected.

The activist complaints have already caused some change in the approach by multilateral institutions which are advising the projects planners.

The Washington-based Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) has given seven million dollars for environmental impact studies to be completed next year. The New York-based United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which had refused to meet with activists, recently agreed to initiate public dialogue with local and regional groups.

“We think that the environmental assessments should have clear answers to the questions that Dr. Ponce raises,” wrote Glenn Switkes, Latin American project director for the International Rivers Network (IRN).

The IRN has sent copies of the Ponce report to U.S. Under- Secretary of State for Global Affairs, Tim Wirth.

Wirth established himself as a major player in the negotiations in October when he visited Bahia Negra, the point at which Paraguay meets Bolivia and Brazil. He visited the site with Paraguayan President Juan Carlos Wasmosy.

One month before Wirth’s trip, the Spanish government announced it would provide money to study the possibility of constructing a dam at Puerto Caballo nearby, which would be one of the first major construction activities of the Hydrovia project.

The purpose of the dam would be to provide water to the arid Chaco region, to the west of the Pantanal.

The U.S. government has provided money to the Organisation of American States (OAS) to conduct a study on restoring the flood plain of the Pilcomayo river which feeds into Paraguay.

Meanwhile, the Belgian company Jan de Nul has begun the process of deepening of the Parana river. The company has received 400 million dollars in Argentine government subsidies and permission to charge tolls to cargo-carrying boats.

Activists warn that similar navigation projects have been major causes of floods, especially when they result in the destruction of the wetlands.

Daniel Prellberg, an expert at the Rhine flood control centre in Mainz, Germany argues that there may be a link between the deepening and straightening of the Rhine in the latter half of the last century and the recent flooding in parts of the Netherlands. Four people were killed in February and 250,000 were forced to flee their homes because of flooding.

Prellberg notes that winter rains rush through the Rhine from Basle to Karlsruhe in 30 hours compared to 60 hours in the past, because 90 percent of the wetlands that once surrounded the Rhine and slowed down the flooding have been claimed for agriculture.

Deborah Moore, a scientist with the Environmental Defence Fund in Oakland, California, says the same may be true of the Mississippi, where the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers deepened the river for about 1,000 kms — from Minneapolis in Minnesota to St. Louis, Missouri. She contends that the faster-flowing waters helped cause major floods in 1993 that caused 12 billion dollars in damage.

ENVIRONMENT: Latin American waterway could cause floods, drought, warns study

By Pratap Chatterjee Reprint | | Print |

Pratap Chatterjee

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 24 1995 (IPS) - A plan by five Latin American countries to deepen and straighten the Paraguay river could result in floods, drought, and shrinking grasslands that hurt the cattle industry, a new study warns.
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