Director: Roberto A. Epple
edited by ERN European Rivers Network
c/o SOS Loire Vivante
8 rue Crozatier Tél +33 - 471 02 08 14
43000 Le Puy Fax: +33 - 471 02 60 99
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web: http://www.rivernet.org
DANUBE : A NATIONAL PARK IN AUSTRIA...
The dream of the opponents to the Hainburg dam on the Danube river in Austria came true at last on October 27th: 10,000 hectares
of riverine forest in the area of the cancelled project officially became a national park, thus finally protecting the last large and
ecologically fairly intact middle-European riverine forest and its amazing biodiversity.
On January 1985, 11 years ago, the opponents to the Hainburg hydroelectric power plant, East of Vienna and not far from the
Slovakian border, had symbolically declared the dam site a national park. Thousands of these environmentalists had been making
headlines in international media for weeks as they had come from all over the country and resisted non-violently to brutal police
assaults to prevent clear cutting of the alluvial forest.
The occupation of the dam site, as well as a court decision giving reason to the opponents to the project, forced the Austrian
government early 1985 to formally give up the project. But it took years of intensive efforts on the part of WWF Austria and associated
NGOs to achieve what can be now considered as an extraordinary victory. During the following years, Austrian company
“ Donaukraftwerke AG ” kept on presenting new dam proposals, never giving up on the idea of using the last undammed 20% of the
Danube for hydro-power; the other 80% of the Danube’s course throughout Austria were already blocked with 9 hydro-power plants.
In February 1989, in order to promote the idea of a Hainburg national park, WWF Austria announced intentions to buy a 411-hectare
stretch of floodplain a few kilometers upstream of Hainburg and launched the “Bail out nature” campaign. Supported by most of the
main Austrian media, the campaign motivated approximately 120,000 people to donate more than $9 million, a sum sufficient to
purchase the 411 hectares of key-area riverine forest.
But it still took years of lobbying to finally ensure final protection.
In 1996, a renaturalization project, (part of WWF international’s ‘Green Danube’ programme) with notably the re-opening of weirs
isolating oxbow lakes from the main stream, raised international awareness. The area bought by WWF became a “mini national park”
and served as a model for the whole future national park. Now that the park has been officially inaugurated in October, 10,000
hectares of living Danube, home to at least 5,000 animal species, many of them threatened, have definitively been saved.
A MORATORIUM IN GERMANY
The German government has decided to postpone the decision to channelize the last free-flowing section of the Danube river in
Germany (between the Rhin-Main-Canal and the Austrian border) for wide-gauge barges until next millenium. The decision aims at
giving time to study alternative measures providing a minimum depth of the river to barges, which would improve navigation without
turning the river into a dead canal ; these measures could notably consist in artificially stabilizing the bottom of the river. But this
postponement will mostly gives time for reviewing the usefulness of this channelizing project between the towns of Straubing and
Vilshofen, which is part of the Rhine-Main-Danube wide-gauge network via the Altmühl river. This decision, a great victory for the
BUND and associate NGOs, may mean the beginning of the end for the overscaled trans-European wide-gauge waterways network,
a part of the TEN (Trans-European Transport Network) which was thought up at the end of the ‘80s.
“ ADAPT SHIPS TO RIVERS, NOT RIVERS TO SHIPS ” : VICTORY ON THE ELBE RIVER
The 1091-kilometer-long Elbe river, once partially flowing through a virtual no man’s land separating East (DDR) and West (BRD)
Germany’s, came out of the shadow with the reunification of the country. Victim of the pollution engendered by East Germany’s heavy
chemical industries - the huge “ Kombinats ” which here and there disgraced its surroundings - it however retained the quality of its
riverine ecosystem, as urbanization remained low on its banks, due to lack of interest on the part of the socialist regime and to the
fact it was a dangerous border zone. Consequently, large areas remained wild and unhampered by human activities, thriving with a
rich flora and fauna and constituting the largest stretch of floodplain forests in Europe.
With “ die Wende ” - Germany’s reunification - interest rose in the forgotten river. On the one hand, the German government launched
efforts to clean up the river. Combined with the disappearance of the Kombinat for economic reasons, the building of 66 purification
plants had excellent results : since 1989, organic pollution and pollution by phosphorus have been divided in two, while the level of
nitrogen decreased by 25% and that of mercury dropped by 65%. But the federal Ministry of Transports had other projects: in order
to facilitate navigation for wide-gauge barges - up to 172 meter-long and up to 11,50 meter large - it planned a series of large dams
which threatened to overthrow the ecological balance of the Elbe ecosystem. On the other hand, environmentalists from Germany
and all over Europe realized the fabulous biodiversity of this river, one of the very few rivers in Europe retaining natural qualities and
its capacity to regulate and purify itself.
Confrontation naturally followed between the interests of the Ministry of Transport and those of the environmentalists, which
managed at first to reduce the damming program to only one dam on the Saale river, a tributary of the Elbe, and to the strengthening
of the “ Buhnen ” (groins) meant to channelize the river for large barges. But even this downgraded program would have had radical
consequences on the dynamics of the river’s natural flow : channelization accelerates the sinking of the riverbed and the drying up of
the precious floodplain forests, as well as the disparition of oxbow lakes and backwater habitats, which have a great role in the
prevention of floods and the improvement of water quality... all drastic consequences for a waterway traffic which currently represents
only 10% of the navigation on the Rhine river and would never increase to such levels as the Rhine’s. Rather than this solution, the
environmentalists proposed to simply use and develop existing canals, which link the Elbe to other rivers : the lateral canal to the
Elbe, built by West Germany when the Elbe river was partially in East Germany ; the Mittellandkanal, leading to the Rhine and Weser
rivers, the canal connecting the Elbe to the Oder through the Havel river and others linking it the Baltic Sea and the North Sea. The
principle was simple : “ adapt ships to rivers and not rivers to ships ” : affect the natural riverbed of rivers as little as possible and put
the barges on artificial canals ; waterways can be considered an ecological alternative to roads - an argument often used by
proponents of waterways - only if the river ecosystem is respected.
Finally, on September 5, the four largest German NGOs (BUND, EURONATUR, NABU, WWF) and the German federal Ministry of
Transport came to an agreement, which plans that the Elbe river will be closed to all commercial traffic between Lauenburg
(upstream from Hamburg) and Magdeburg as soon as existing canals are widened for wide-gauge ships. This portion of the River
Elbe may be added to the existing 78 km-long UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, the Mittlerer Elbe - the Middle Elbe Biosphere Reserve
- at the confluency with the Saale river. Located around Dessau and Torgau, where the American and Russian troops invading
Germany joined during World War II, the Biosphere Reserve would become subsequently the longest protected section of river in the
world.
Upstream from the confluency with the Saale river, barges of existing gauge will keep using the river to reach Prague. The next step
for environmentalists will be to protect this portion of the river, the upper Elbe. But the long-term objective is the deep questioning of
the European policy of enlarging rivers for wide-gauge in East Europe. ?
GREAT CANAL : SCANDALOUS SUBSIDIES !
Prime Minister Alain Juppé has just authorized the CNR (Compagnie Nationale du Rhône) to begin buying land and launching
compulsory purchase orders on the course planned for the great canal Rhine-Rhône. The SORELIF, a subsidiary company of the
CNR and EDF (the French Electricity Generating Authority) in charge of building the canal, hopes to buy the necessary 3,700
hectares before the state approval expires in June 1998. In order to quicken the process and avoid placing compulsory purchase
orders since time in short before June ‘98, CNR has decided upon a scandalous measure : farmers who will sell their land to settle
elsewhere will be granted FF100,000 ($25,000) per hectare, while farmers who will retire will receive FF10,000 ($2,500) per
hectare ! This agreement, supported by the government, has no precedent and worries contractors in charge of building large
infrastructures who fear it will set a precedent. FF290 ($58) million are programmed for these “premiums”, which will add to the price
of each hectare. Out of a total of 3,700 hectares, 700 have already been sold to CNR by private agreement. 70% of the farmers,
who did not expect such a godsend, are ready to sell ; 20% still hesitate and 10% still refuse, while CNR was hoping to reduce
compulsory purchase orders to 1%. The launching of this subsidizing operation happens when the poll assessing riverside
residents’ opinion has just ended. During this poll, 8,500 people have expressed their thoughts about the project, either during
public meetings or by mail. Out of 1,576 letters, 75% have shown a negative opinion of the canal ; on the whole, the poll reveals a
widespread opposition to a project deemed by some experts and part of the State administration as “outdated, not profitable and
harmful for the environment”. Its cost, estimated by CNR, amounted last year to FF17 billion ($3,4 billion) ; according to new
estimates by the general inspection of public finances, it now reaches FF28 billion ($5,6 billion). It actually could be FF40 billion ($8
billion) when interests and supplementary works are taken into account. But wasting public money and despising public opinion do
not seem to bother French authorities very
“PLAN LOIRE” : GENERAL UPDATE
On the Loire, the government launched a global plan aiming at reconciling economic interests, population safety and environment
protection on January 4th, 1994. The flood-control project in Brives-Charensac, on the Upper Loire Valley, has just proved its
efficiency during a recent flood. It now has to be extended to the whole Loire upper basin. The LIFE-Loire program, meant to protect
ecologically interesting areas, is also well under way. However, the destruction of 2 dams - Saint-Etienne du Vigan on the Upper Allier
and Maisons-Rouges on the Vienne river -, part of the migratory fish program of the Plan Loire, is behind schedule and the Juppé
government proves no enthusiasm to accelerate the process.
SAINT-ETIENNE DU VIGAN : A DAM TO BE DESTROYED
The destruction of the Saint-Etienne du Vigan dam, on the upper Allier river - which has been blocking salmon migration to their best
spawning grounds since the XIXth century - is planned as part of the migratory fish program of the Plan Loire launched on January
4th, 1994. Works are starting this fall, with the emptying of the dam during the high waters period. The impact of the dam’s destruction
appears very limited, as sediments are mostly mineral and include little organic matter. Works amount to FF7 million ($1.4 million)
and should end in spring 98. The dam fees paid yearly by EDF (the French Electricity Generating Authority ) to the district - which
amounted to FF8,850 ($1,770) a year (total budget of the commune : FF400,000, i.e .$80,000) will be replaced by an endowment by
the Anglers’ Federation.
This destruction, as well as the construction of a fishladder on the Vichy dam (FF20 million, i.e.
$4 million ) - already done - and the improvement of the fishladders of about 10 dams (FF 2,5 million, i.e. $625,000), belongs to the
program aiming at giving back to salmon 300 hectares of spawning grounds on the Allier basin, notably on the Sioule, the Dore and
Allagnon rivers. The Plan Loire also plans to destroy another dam, Maisons-Rouge on the Vienne river, in order to allow migratory
fish to recolonize the Vienne river and its two main tributaries, the Creuse and the Gartempe rivers.
FLOOD PROTECTION ALTERNATIVES ON THE UPPER LOIRE VALLEY : IT WORKS
Insuring safety without a dam while reinforcing the ties between the town and the river : here is what makes the Loire Plan ("Plan Loire Grandeur Nature") in the Upper Loire, which main works have been successfully completed this fall, a milestone in the history of river management. The efficiency of the works has just been demonstrated with a flood in November which reached approximately 1400 m3/s (the 1980 flood which caused 8 deaths reached 2000 m3/s) : the works have engendered a lowering of the flow of 2 meters and a total safety of the persons in the town of Brives-Charensac. Given up on January 4, 1994, by the French government after a 6-year long struggle between the local organization SOS Loire Vivante and the authorities, the Serre de la Fare dam project on the upper Loire valley was meant to suppress, by the drowning of a 14-km-long stretch of magnificent gorges, the sometimes dramatic floods of the Loire, the last of which caused 8 deaths in Brives- Charensac in 1980. The Loire Plan, launched by the government following counter-propositions of the environmentalists, has achieved the same results for a cost 2 to 3 times smaller (FF140 million, i.e. $2.8 million - FF80 million for hydraulic works, FF60 for urbanistic works). Concerning safety, the Loire Plan in Brives-Charensac aims at one precise goal : in case of a flood the size of 1980’s, keep the water from submerging the houses along the banks by more than one meter and from flowing faster than 1 meter per second ; this last parameter allows for an easy
SILENCED RIVERS
The Ecology and Politics of Large Dams, by Patrick McCully
Massive dams are much more than simply machines to generate electricity and store water. They are concrete, rock and earth expressions of the dominant ideology of the technological age: icons of economic development and scientific progress to match nuclear bombs and motor cars. More than 400,000 square kilometres - the area of California - have been inundated behind the world’s 40,000 large dams. Freshwaters, because of a host of human assaults, but especially because of dams, are the most degraded of major ecosystems. Dams are the main reason why fully one-fifth of the world’s freshwater fish are now either endangered or extinct. The number of people flooded off their lands by dams is certainly in the tens of millions - 30 million would be a conservative estimate, 60 million more likely. Very few of these people ever reconvered from the ordeal, either economically or psychologically. Dams kill people because they spread diseases such as malaria and because they break. Silenced Rivers explains the history and politics of dam building worldwide and shows why large dams have become the most controversial of technologies. It describes the many technical, safety and economic problems which afflict the technology, the structure of the international dam-building industry, and the role played by international banks and aid agencies in promoting the technology of the South. Silenced Rivers also tells the story of the rapid growth of the international anti-dam movement. It stresses how replacing large dams with less destructive alternatives will depend upon the opening up of the dam industry’s practices to public scrutiny. Patrick McCully is Campaigns Director of International Rivers Network in Berkeley, California. He is an Associate Editor of The Ecologist, Contributing Writer for Multinational Monitor and a member of the International Forum on Globalization. He is co-author of Imperiled Planet: Restoring our Endangered Ecosystems (MIT Press, 1990) and The Road to Rio: An NGO Action Guide to the Earth Summit (International Books, 1992). To order a copy, contact European Rivers Network