Thousands Displaced for Leaky Brazilian Dam
BRAZIL - How amusing you find this story depends on how dark your sense of humor is. Almost as soon as the recently completed Campos Novos Dam reservoir started filling up with water in October 2005, it slowly began leaking. Engineers blamed a faulty diversion tunnel. In June 2006, it suddenly began to hemorrhage water from some serious cracks in its lower base. But last week the reservoir suddenly emptied, falling over 160 feet in a few days. The water raced down the parched riverbed and into the reservoir of a dam downstream that was almost empty due to a severe regional drought. That's kind of funny.
More on the Campos Novos
Dam.
Return to water
map.
Of course, the money behind the dam probably isn't all that amused either. The dam was built by a consortium led by Brazilian construction giant Camargo Correa and engineering consultants Engevix. Major funders for the dam included the Inter-American Development Bank and the Brazilian state-owned National Bank for Economic and Social Development. The Social Development part didn't work out for a lot of the locals.
The powers behind the dam have been a little insensitive in the way they removed people from their homes to make room for the hydroelectric prokect. There were the usual round-ups of community leaders and violent police suppression of protests. In total 750 families, about 3,000 people, have been displaced by the dam, and not all have received indemnifcation or resettlement.
