Ecobreves – CHILE: Citizens Halt Dams in Capital

By IPS Correspondents and - - Reprint | | Print |

SANTIAGO, May 12 2008 (IPS) - The withdrawal of a project to build to hydroelectric dams on Chile's Maipo River, planned by the AES Gener company, is a “citizen triumph”, according to the Maipo River Citizen Organization. The company withdrew the project that it had presented to the government's Environmental Impact Evaluation System.

Created in August 2007 by neighborhood councils, ecological organizations and tourism groups in Santiago, the Organization denounced several irregularities committed by AES Gener.

“The company changed the project when it was under way, without assessing the new impacts, and it does not hold the water rights necessary to carry it out,” the citizen group's spokesperson Carolina Besa told Tierramérica.

“The Organization will remain alert, defending the Maipo River, which supplies the 6.5 million people of Santiago,” she added.