From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Fri May 14 2010 - 15:20:08 EDT
Tension over Nile waters rises
By ARGAW ASHINE NATION Correspondent, Addis Ababa
Posted Friday, May 14 2010 at 19:33
In Summary
* Ethiopia shrugs off protests from groups opposed to building of dam
on the river
Ethiopia inaugurated a power plant as tension rose on Nile basin despite
rifts on water sharing agreement with downstream countries.
The country launched a new hydro dam on the source of Blue Nile river basin
in western Ethiopia, Tana Beles.
Ethiopia contributes 86 per cent of Nile water.
The country officially inaugurated new hydro plant called Tana Beles, which
have a capacity of generating 460 megawatts. Beles is located around 500km
from Addis Ababa in western Ethiopia.
Nile River basin states are battling over the water-sharing rights after
Egypt and Sudan refused to sign a new pact. The new pact allows all the
basin states to use the water equitably.
Ethiopia's new dam Tana Beles uses water from Lake Tana, which significantly
contributes water to River Nile.
During the inauguration, Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said the completion of
this new dam marks the realisation of Ethiopia's hundred years of effort to
utilise its resource on the Nile.
Ethiopia built the dam without any foreign support after donors refused to
fund the project. The dam cost more than $500 million, about Sh40 billion.
Mr Zenawi said the Ethiopian government is working to achieve their target
of generating 5,000 to 8,000 megawatts.
National grid
Ethiopia Electric Power Corporation CEO Mihret Debebe said Beles hydro plant
provides an additional 23 per cent of power generation capacity to the
national grid.
Hunger-stricken Ethiopia also set to cultivate 119,000 hectares of land
through irrigation from the outlet water of the dam.
"Our priority is to deal with the current power shortage at home," Mihret
said.
Currently Ethiopia is under serious power shortage despite the ongoing dam
boom across the nation.
Gibe 2 with a capacity of 420 MW was inaugurated five months ago but halted
its power generation within two weeks after a rock hit a tunnel.
According to government officials the maintenance is going well and Gibe 2
expected to resume power generation in July.
Ethiopia is also constructing Gibe 3, which has a capacity of 1,870MW and
the biggest hydro dam in sub Saharan Africa.
Despite fierce opposition from environmental groups, Ethiopia moved to build
more dams on Gibe River, which flows to Lake Turkana in Kenya.
Ethiopia already signed an agreement with Chinese companies to build Gibe 4
and Gibe 5 within the next four years.
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