Ecobreves – CHILE: Opposition to Four Mega-Dams

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

SANTIAGO, Mar 6 2006 (IPS) - An international offensive led by the U.S.-based International Rivers Network seeks to prevent financial agencies from funding the Spanish transnational Endesa for building four huge hydroelectric dams on the Baker and Pascua rivers, 1,800 km south of the Chilean capital. Flavia Liberona, head of the non-governmental group Ecosistemas, entrusted with coordinating the campaign locally, told Tierramérica that “in Chile the government doesn't have the ability to regulate Endesa, which decides how and when it will build the dams, and the National Energy Commission can't say no.”

“The environmental impact evaluation isn't responding either,” she said. That is why “we believe the campaign has to be international.”

According to Endesa, the project will be ready in 2008 and activated between 2012 and 2018. It will generate 2,430 megawatts, requiring the construction of 2,000 km of transmission lines and flooding of some 9,000 hectares.