With Rings on Their Fingers

In characteristic heavy-handed fashion, Brazil´s electricity bureaucracy last week went through the motions of assuring the public and environmental licensing authorities that Belo Monte will be stand-alone dam on the Xingu River. In attempting to explain the decision, Jerson Kelman, Director-General of the electrical energy regulatory body, ANEEL, said "Technically, there´s no reason not to build other dams (on the river)". Kelman termed the decision "political", designed to satisfy those who want the dam. "It´s a typical case of giving up your rings to keep your fingers", he said. (Ouch!)

Brazil´s latest hydroelectric inventory for the Xingu had indicated the feasibility of three upstream dams - São Felix (906 MW), Pombal (600 MW), and Altamira (1848 MW), but the author of the inventory, state holding company Eletrobrás chose to conclude that the 11,181 MW Belo Monte would serve just fine as a sole dam on the Xingu, since the upstream dams would impact indigenous reserves and conservation units even more.

So, who´s behind the pressure for Belo Monte to be built? The Amazon´s most prominent independent journalist, Lúcio Flávio Pinto pointed out that aluminum smelters in the Amazon have slowed down expansion plans to the point where Companhia Vale do Rio Doce is now planning to import coal from China for a 600 MW thermoelectric plant to provide energy for its Albrás foundry. The only other potential source of energy in the short run is Belo Monte.

"For this reason", Pinto writes, "in an well-orchestrated offensive, the National Energy Policy Council decreed that Belo Monte would be the only project in the basin. The government renounced construction of three other dams that were included in Eletronorte´s work plans so as to not cause damaging effects to the Indians and other populations in the area...But, if in the future, with another government, the political winds shift, the course of original plans could be retaken. Nothing would stop that from happening".

Pinto continues "independent technical experts continue to be of the mind that Belo Monte is economically unfeasible as a stand-alone dam, independent of the analysis of its socio-environmental impacts. The commitment to a sole dam on the Xingu is only a tactical maneuver to make the initial dam a done deal and in that way make the rest of the dams more possible - these would accumulate water upstream during low-water periods (when the Xingu´s flow can fall to one-thirtieth its high-water peak), thus increasing its energy generation".

And Environment Minister Carlos Minc joined the chorus, saying that the decision to build only Belo Monte was "an agreement...(in which) our guaranteeing a license would be an important factor". All this, despite the fact that environmental studies for Belo Monte have not even been completed yet.

Let´s see whether the indigenous peoples of the Xingu will agree to be part of this big deal.