Three-way committee on Ethiopian dam meets in Addis Ababa later this week

Egyptian Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Hisham Qandeel said on Saturday 28/1/2012 that the committee entrusted with studying the impact of Ethiopia’s Millennium Dam has decided to convene by the end of the week in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. During the two-day meeting, the committee that includes experts from Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan will select two international water and social sciences experts as new committee members. The committee has chosen two international experts in the field of dam construction, mega reservoirs and environment during a meeting held 10 days ago in the Sudanese capital. The committee is due to meet in February in Cairo to start its assessment job. The Minister confirmed that the Ethiopian side reiterated during the Khartoum meeting its commitment to making available all required information during the experts’ assessment that is expected to take six to nine months. At the end of its assessment, the committee will present its recommendations to the three governments about both the positive and negative impact of constructing the dam as well as means to handle those impacts. The committee’s job will prepare for announcing a unified stance on the Millennium Dam by the three nations. Three-way committee on Ethiopian dam meets in Addis Ababa later this week Egyptian Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation Hisham Qandeel said on Saturday 28/1/2012 that the committee entrusted with studying the impact of Ethiopia’s Millennium Dam has decided to convene by the end of the week in the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa. During the two-day meeting, the committee that includes experts from Egypt, Ethiopia and Sudan will select two international water and social sciences experts as new committee members. The committee has chosen two international experts in the field of dam construction, mega reservoirs and environment during a meeting held 10 days ago in the Sudanese capital. The committee is due to meet in February in Cairo to start its assessment job. The Minister confirmed that the Ethiopian side reiterated during the Khartoum meeting its commitment to making available all required information during the experts’ assessment that is expected to take six to nine months. At the end of its assessment, the committee will present its recommendations to the three governments about both the positive and negative impact of constructing the dam as well as means to handle those impacts. The committee’s job will prepare for announcing a unified stance on the Millennium Dam by the three nations.

Millennium Dam committee to meet in Sudan | Al-Masry Al-Youm: Today's News from Egypt

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Khartoum is hosting a two-day meeting of the tripartite technical committee that will evaluate Ethiopia’s Millennium Dam on Sunday. Four international experts from different specializations will be chosen to join the committee.

At some point within the next month, a meeting will be held in Cairo to discuss the evaluation process for the project.

An official source responsible for the Nile water dossier said Ethiopia has pledged to provide all information needed for the evaluation of the dam, adding that the tripartite committee will submit its recommendations to the governments of Egypt, Sudan and Ethiopia following an assessment period of six to nine months.

The report will include the benefits and drawbacks of the construction of the dam, and while the three states will announce a final position on the dam after considering the report, the committee’s opinion will be binding.

The source said that Egyptian cooperation with African and Nile Basin countries is continuing, and that port management training programs are currently being discussed. The source said these programs seek to train and increase the competitiveness of employees in marine ports and marine transportation companies.

Dam rupture dam in Brazilian town - Americas - Al Jazeera English

Brazil's Rio de Janeiro state has placed emergency teams on maximum alert as heavy rains that have displaced 35,000 residents were forecast to continue, reviving fears of mudslides and flooding that killed about 900 people early last year.

Residents scrambled to gather their belongings and flee in the Tres Vendas district of Campos de Goytacazes in the north of the state, after a small dam ruptured, sending water rushing through the streets.

Meanwhile, local media reported eight people had died by Thursday after floods in neighbouring Minas Gerais state, with 87 towns there declared a states of emergency.

A pensioner was also reported to have been killed while trying to save personal belongings in one flooded town in northeastern Rio de Janeiro.

Emergency workers said more than 1,000 families from Tres Vendas had been evacuated to shelters.

"We're trying to put up stone barriers to prevent the water advancing but it's difficult," Rosinha Garotinho, prefect of Campos and a former state governor, said.


Flooding killed 900 people and destroyed more than 31,000 homes in Brazil in early 2011

She said there was no immediate risk of flooding in other districts of Campos.

Rio governor Sergio Cabral said the maximum alert, which requires emergency teams to intensify preparations, was focused on vulnerable towns in the north and northeast of the state as well as the Serrana region 97km north of the capital.

A year ago, heavy rain caused mudslides in the Serrana region that killed around 900 people, many of whom were asleep when rivers of mud buried them in their homes.

Photographs of the ruptured dam in Tres Vendas showed muddy water rushing through a gap in the dam about the width of three cars.

"Now, about 40 per cent of the streets [of Tres Vendas] are engulfed in water and we expect it will reach them all," said Major Edison Pessanha of the Civil Defence authority, according to a local government website.

Campos de Goytacazes, located about 280km north of Rio de Janeiro, is adjacent to the offshore Campos Basin from where about 80 per cent of Brazil's oil is pumped.

Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: Egypt’s enemy or a blessing in disguise? | Al-Masry Al-Youm: Today's News from Egypt

Preliminary construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GRD) began in April 2011 on the Blue Nile River near the Sudanese border. Scheduled for completion in 2014, it is planned to be the biggest hydropower dam in Africa, with more than twice the generating capacity of the Aswan High Dam. But long before the completion date, the project is already generating significant concern amongst the nine other countries that share the Nile, especially Egypt.

Over the past century many treaties have been signed in an attempt to assure each riparian country a right to Nile water, with Egypt generally receiving the lion’s share. But sub-Saharan African counties have long argued that the old treaties deny their modern right to livelihood, and after a decade of political to-and-fro between these countries and Egypt, the GRD is now underway.

Most recently, the Egyptian government protested that no quantitative studies have been conducted with regard to the dam’s effects, a complaint that resulted in a trilateral ministerial meeting being held in November between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan. During this meeting, it was announced that an independent technical committee of experts from each country would be formed in six months time to produce such a study.

But at the same meeting, Alemayehu Tegenu, the Ethiopian minister of water and energy, declared that regardless of the study’s outcome, the construction of the dam will continue unabated due to high confidence that the GRD will ultimately benefit all parties.

Adel Darwish, a British journalist and historian who co-wrote the 1994 book “Water Wars: Coming Conflicts in the Middle East,” told Egypt Independent that Egypt never should have ruled out the option of military intervention, because the stakes are so high for the country’s livelihood.

While Egypt Waits

Various experts have recently shared with Egypt Independent their own input on the potential pros and cons of the GRD.

Sherine al-Baradei, an AUC professor in the department of construction and architectural engineering with a focus on hydraulics, points out a number of major issues with the dam.

“Obviously, dams provide both good and bad effects,” she says. “But with Egypt being so dependent on the Nile, serious agreements must be made to ensure that the bad effects are minimized, and in advance.”

According to Baradei, hydropower dams create immense turbulence in the water, where chemical reactions such as dissolved oxygen can destroy fauna and flora. While the water will return to its normal state before reaching Egypt, the damage to these populations will be permanent. In addition, many nutrients and silt, which are essential for agriculture, will be retained in the large dam.

“When the Aswan High Dam was built, farmers, fisheries and many others were seriously affected for decades by the lowering of nutrients, silt, flora and fauna in the water,” she says.

Baradei explains that these levels will certainly drop further with the GRD, not to mention many other unforeseen problems that will likely occur.

Perhaps the most significant concern is that Egypt may no longer receive its appropriate share of water. But according to Baradei, issues of water regulation can be solved through negotiations with Ethiopia, whereas there is no solution for the loss of flora and fauna.

The Nile Basin Core Group (NBCG), a team of Nile specialists, has a more positive analysis of the situation. In their view, the GRD is an opportunity to create strong ties between Egypt and sub-Saharan countries, and there may also be many positive effects of the dam.

“The right question is not what the effects of the GRD will be, but how the Nile basin’s water can be used to integrate all riparian countries in a stable and efficient way,” says Mohamed al-Mongy, an environmental development specialist from the NBCG. “Instead of looking North, East and West for our solutions, we need to begin looking South, where the source of our livelihood lies.”

One of Mongy’s colleagues at NBCG, Haytham Awad, a hydrologist from the University of Alexandria, has conducted research that indicates the GRD may actually increase water flow to Egypt.

Awad’s research shows that during the flood season in late August and early September, the majority of Egypt’s water arrives in Lake Nasser, where it is stored for approximately ten months until peak agriculture season in July the following year. During this period, approximately twelve percent of the stored water evaporates.

However, with the water being stored in the GRD, where there will be less evaporation and that will help conserve water.

Another finding is that the GRD is expected to produce power surpluses which, assuming cooperation, could be exported to Egypt, leading to strengthened ties between the two countries.

“Collaboration is key,” says Lama El Hatow, a member of the NBCG doing her PhD research on water governance of the Nile basin. “When we negotiate with the riparian states, it is vital that we understand all the facts and science holistically.

“Good science should lead to the right political negotiations, as opposed to jumping to haphazard conclusions based on partial understandings that may lead to Egypt’s own detriment,” she concludes.

Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam: Egypt’s enemy or a blessing in disguise? | Al-Masry Al-Youm: Today's News from Egypt

Preliminary construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GRD) began in April 2011 on the Blue Nile River near the Sudanese border. Scheduled for completion in 2014, it is planned to be the biggest hydropower dam in Africa, with more than twice the generating capacity of the Aswan High Dam. But long before the completion date, the project is already generating significant concern amongst the nine other countries that share the Nile, especially Egypt.

Over the past century many treaties have been signed in an attempt to assure each riparian country a right to Nile water, with Egypt generally receiving the lion’s share. But sub-Saharan African counties have long argued that the old treaties deny their modern right to livelihood, and after a decade of political to-and-fro between these countries and Egypt, the GRD is now underway.

Most recently, the Egyptian government protested that no quantitative studies have been conducted with regard to the dam’s effects, a complaint that resulted in a trilateral ministerial meeting being held in November between Ethiopia, Egypt and Sudan. During this meeting, it was announced that an independent technical committee of experts from each country would be formed in six months time to produce such a study.

But at the same meeting, Alemayehu Tegenu, the Ethiopian minister of water and energy, declared that regardless of the study’s outcome, the construction of the dam will continue unabated due to high confidence that the GRD will ultimately benefit all parties.

Adel Darwish, a British journalist and historian who co-wrote the 1994 book “Water Wars: Coming Conflicts in the Middle East,” told Egypt Independent that Egypt never should have ruled out the option of military intervention, because the stakes are so high for the country’s livelihood.

While Egypt Waits

Various experts have recently shared with Egypt Independent their own input on the potential pros and cons of the GRD.

Sherine al-Baradei, an AUC professor in the department of construction and architectural engineering with a focus on hydraulics, points out a number of major issues with the dam.

“Obviously, dams provide both good and bad effects,” she says. “But with Egypt being so dependent on the Nile, serious agreements must be made to ensure that the bad effects are minimized, and in advance.”

According to Baradei, hydropower dams create immense turbulence in the water, where chemical reactions such as dissolved oxygen can destroy fauna and flora. While the water will return to its normal state before reaching Egypt, the damage to these populations will be permanent. In addition, many nutrients and silt, which are essential for agriculture, will be retained in the large dam.

“When the Aswan High Dam was built, farmers, fisheries and many others were seriously affected for decades by the lowering of nutrients, silt, flora and fauna in the water,” she says.

Baradei explains that these levels will certainly drop further with the GRD, not to mention many other unforeseen problems that will likely occur.

Perhaps the most significant concern is that Egypt may no longer receive its appropriate share of water. But according to Baradei, issues of water regulation can be solved through negotiations with Ethiopia, whereas there is no solution for the loss of flora and fauna.

The Nile Basin Core Group (NBCG), a team of Nile specialists, has a more positive analysis of the situation. In their view, the GRD is an opportunity to create strong ties between Egypt and sub-Saharan countries, and there may also be many positive effects of the dam.

“The right question is not what the effects of the GRD will be, but how the Nile basin’s water can be used to integrate all riparian countries in a stable and efficient way,” says Mohamed al-Mongy, an environmental development specialist from the NBCG. “Instead of looking North, East and West for our solutions, we need to begin looking South, where the source of our livelihood lies.”

One of Mongy’s colleagues at NBCG, Haytham Awad, a hydrologist from the University of Alexandria, has conducted research that indicates the GRD may actually increase water flow to Egypt.

Awad’s research shows that during the flood season in late August and early September, the majority of Egypt’s water arrives in Lake Nasser, where it is stored for approximately ten months until peak agriculture season in July the following year. During this period, approximately twelve percent of the stored water evaporates.

However, with the water being stored in the GRD, where there will be less evaporation and that will help conserve water.

Another finding is that the GRD is expected to produce power surpluses which, assuming cooperation, could be exported to Egypt, leading to strengthened ties between the two countries.

“Collaboration is key,” says Lama El Hatow, a member of the NBCG doing her PhD research on water governance of the Nile basin. “When we negotiate with the riparian states, it is vital that we understand all the facts and science holistically.

“Good science should lead to the right political negotiations, as opposed to jumping to haphazard conclusions based on partial understandings that may lead to Egypt’s own detriment,” she concludes.