Citing Environment, China Delays World's Longest Aqueduct Project
by Alex Pasternack, Beijing, China on 01. 3.09
China is delaying its construction of a massive earth-changing project that will divert billions of tons of water to its parched north, in an attempt to mitigate environmental damage.
The four-year delay, reports the Wall Street Journal, will impact the central of three sections of the "South-to-North" water diversion project, which at $62 billion may cost three times what the Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest, cost. The project is designed to move water over hundreds of kilometers, from China's central and southern regions to the north using three massive pipes. It could mean the relocation of some 300,000 people and carry enough water along its three routes to satisfy half of California's water needs.
A project that moves that much water across such a large distance is going to present a little more than the usual kind of environmental problem. Forget Chinatown; this could turn water tensions into water wars.