Planned dam given favourable environmental assessment

A controversial new dam planned for Mepanda Uncua on the Zambezi river in Mozambique’s western province of Tete would inundate a relatively small area, creating a lake that was only 100-square km in area. This was one of the findings reported by PANA on Saturday from a preliminary environmental and social assessment by the Mozambican government’s Technical Unit for the Implementation of Hydroelectric Projects (UTIP). Mepanda Uncua is 61 km downstream from the Cabora Bassa dam and the plan is to build a dam and power station there capable of generating 1,200 megawatts. According to experts from a Mozambican company, Impacto, which specialises in environmental impact assessments, Mepanda Uncua is located at a spot where the Zambezi tumbles through a narrow ravine. The geology means that the lake created will be nowhere near as large as the Cabora Bassa lake, or the Kariba lake in Zimbabwe, according to the report. It said studies indicated that Mepanda Uncua would drown a relatively small area of forest, and almost no arable land. A preliminary count of the people living in the area indicated that about 1,000 people would have to be resettled elsewhere, the report added. However, in South Africa concerns have been raised among some environmentalists over the wisdom of builing yet another dam on the Zambezi. They have argued that the recent flooding in Mozambique was exacerbated by the system of dams along the river valley and their alleged priority of foreign exchange generation rather than coordinated water flow management. The other hydro-electric project favoured by UTIP was the building of a second power station at Cabora Bassa - the current one, with a generating capacity of 2,075 megawatts, is on the south bank of the river. A north bank power station could generate a further 600 megawatts, and would have no additional impact on the flow of the Zambezi, the report said, adding that the most economic option would be to build the Mepanda Uncua dam first, and the Cabora Bassa north bank power station later. Initial estimates of the investment required were about US $1.25 billion for the Mepanda Uncua, and about US $469 million for Cabora Bassa north, the report said.