by Sung Quo-Cheng, Professor, Department
of Geology,
National Kaohsiung Normal University
March 14 was an International Day of Action Against Dams and for Rivers, Water and Life. In Meinung Town on this day, beside the East Gate Building and in front of the shrine to the pioneering town founder, a group of activists long committed to a green ecology assembled and pledged to protect the river and stop the construction of the Meinung Dam. Looking at the crowd of faces shouting their determination, some with the fresh enthusiasm of youth and some lined with wrinkles and the sincere wisdom of age, I could not but be moved. I began to understand why this day to oppose dams had been established.
After the 1970's, people throughout the world who had been victimized by dams formed a broad alliance. From India and Brazil to Eastern Europe and America, there came a roar of successful movements against dams. The movement to stop dams had become a kind of international cry of the new age. In March 1997 representatives from over twenty countries, including countries in Asia, Europe, and North and South America, came together in the Curitiba Conference for the First International Meeting of People Affected by Dams. The purpose of this meeting was to provide a venue for exchanging experience in fighting dams in different countries, and to build up a global network for people in areas that have been blighted by dams. During the Conference, on March 14, the local Brazilian environmental group organized the Brazil Action Day Against Big Dams, in response to the daily-mounting problem of dams being built in the Amazon Basin. This day of demonstrations, street theatre, speeches, and songs expressed the rage of the disadvantaged groups threatened by dams in Brazil. On the last day of the Conference, the assembly passed the Declaration of Curitiba, and furthermore declared March 14 the international day of action against dams for the future.
I deeply believe that the people of a country have rights equal to those of the officials. Last year in the beginning of July I presented my brief on the newest evaluation of the safety of the geological site of the proposed Meinung Dam to the Ministry of Economics. I think it is now time to make my report on the safety of the Meinung Dam site public, and let the people, along with the officials, scrutinize the policy of constructing this dam.
As everyone knows, the foremost concern of the people of Meinung in opposing construction of this dam has been the matter of safety. The people of Meinung all know that there are a number of faults crossing the catchment area of the dam: Liuguei, Guanglin, Yuehguang Mountain, Fangliao, etc. Year before last, the Water Resources Bureau of the Ministry of Economics commissioned the Water Resources Research Center of National Chungshan University to draw up a research report on this matter. This report, "Meinung Dam Combined Information Consultation Plan", strongly questioned the issue of the faults at the site of the dam. Because of this, the Water Resources Bureau in January of last year asked the Taiwan Province South Area Water Resources Bureau (now part of the Ministry of Economics) to commission a study by the Earth Sciences Department of National Chengkung University entitled "Research Plan on the Geological Structure of the Site of Meinung Dam", to objectively evaluate the faults of the catchment area and the dam site. The conclusion of this six-month study was that a fault runs through site of the proposed dam, and that it would endanger the safety of a dam built there.
The Meinung Dam catchment area is situated on a thrust block between the Chi-Shan and the Liuguei faults. The main faults which run through the area are the Guanglin, the Yuehguang, and the Fangliao, plus the faults that were newly discovered by this research, the Chutou-Shan, Maowoh, and other faults. Actually, the three main geological features that may threaten Meinung Dam are:
1. The Chutou-Shan fault is extending in the northeast direction, and it precisely traverses the planned location of the dam. Although past investigators believed the geological structure of the dam site was a syncline, it is now understood that this syncline is offset about one hundred meters by the Chutou-Shan fault. The existence of the fault was suspected in studies of the Japanese period, but it has only now been confirmed.
2. The newly-discovered Maowoh fault (parallel to Chutou-Shan but more northerly) and the Yuehguang fault separately cross the southeast and the west sides of the catchment area, creating a situation in which the narrow saddles may affect the allowable water level and safety.
3. The Chi-Shan fault and the Liuguei fault, between which two the Meinung Dam catchment area lies, are considered to be second degree active faults or suspected active faults. And the faults of the catchment area mentioned above are connected with them, so the possibility of their movement cannot be ruled out. Since these faults can be seen in the features of the surface and must be relatively recent, their activity cannot be underestimated.
Since the September 21 Chi-Chi earthquake, earth scientists have been deeply impressed that fault activity and earthquakes cannot be predicted. Engineering specialists have also begun to rethink whether "the plans of man conquer nature". The Meinung area is not especially seismologically active, but that does not mean it will not be active. The Chi-Chi earthquake which killed 2,500 is a chilling lesson in this regard.
If the decision to build the Meinung Dam was indeed made under our excessive national demand for water resources (e.g. the Binnan Industrial Park development plan), then it seems the government has used the safety of the dam as its stakes in a gamble that could risk the lives of the people of Meinung Township. The construction of the dam can be discussed from many angles, but there can be compromise on the issue of safety.
What is shocking is that the problem of the fault under the Meinung Dam seems to have received almost no official attention in the decision to build or not! We exhort the decision-makers to give apt attention to this problem and rewrite the environmental impact assessment statement using the most recent and correct information, in order to make the right decision.
In closing, I want to use a quote from Lee Yueh-Seh that is found in the history of Chinese technology: "Rivers are like the mouth of an infant. If you block it, the child will cry all the more; or else it will be smothered." I think, it might be better to let the rivers run freely!
