In 2011 September, Duero Basin Authority develops La Gotera Dam Removal Project, up to a dam allocated in Bernesga River (León, Spain). This intervention is part of the Spanish National Strategy of River Restoration, whose objective is recovering channel continuity in a significant reach of this emblematic river flowing through the Alto Bernesga Biosphere Reserve of the Man and Biosphere Programme.
Multilateral
development banks are funding a roll out of hydropower projects in
national parks, world heritage sites and conservation zones across the
Balkans
International banks have ploughed hundreds of millions of euros into a
wave of hydropower projects sweeping across many pristine national
parks and environmentally-protected regions in the Balkans, according to
a new report.
Around half of 1,640 planned and actual projects in countries such as
Bosnia, Macedonia and Albania are to be constructed in protected
national parks, world heritage and Natura 2000 (EU protected) sites or their equivalents.
The Bankwatch study found that the banks had stumped up at least
€818m in 75 projects for which funding could be identified. Thirty of
these were in protected areas.
“Even small hydropower dams can deprive local people of water they
need for irrigation. They can stop fish migrating and impact on water
quality by turning flowing streams into stagnant bodies of water.
Rafters and fishermen can’t use the waterways and neither can animals
which relied on the river system as it was.”
In all, conservationists say that 2,700 dams are planned across the Balkans, although the Bern Convention standing committee ordered a stop
to one of the most controversial in Macedonia’s Mavrovo national park
earlier this month, pending a strategic environmental assessment.
The International Union for the Conservation of Nature had protested
to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) that its
support for the $65m project presented “direct threats to critical species,” such as the last 50 or so remaining Balkan lynx in the area.
The EBRD has granted €240m to 51 of the projects named in the
Bankwatch report, nearly half of which were in protected areas. Another
€36m was provided by the EBRD and European Investment Bank (EIB) for 27
small hydropower plants in the Balkans.
“The EBRD is violating its own policies which are supposed to ensure
that all necessary steps are taken to avoid environmentally harmful
projects,” Gallop said.
A
spokesperson for the bank said: “The EBRD hasn’t seen the report.
However, we are taking the environmental concerns of NGO groups very
seriously. We are in touch with Bankwatch and awaiting to see the final
version of the report.” But the EBRD’s environmental guidelines
pledge not to finance “activities prohibited by host country
legislation or international conventions relating to the protection of
biodiversity resources or cultural heritage”.
An EIB spokesman told the Guardian that it was sensitive to the
issues the Bankwatch report raised. “The EIB recognises the potential
contribution of hydropower to renewable energy,” the official said. “As
outlined by the EIB’s Energy
Lending Criteria hydro schemes need to take account of sensitive
safety, environmental and social issues and all hydro projects financed
by the EIB have to comply fully with European environmental and social
standards.”
Austrian companies stand out as major investors in the report,
funding at least 52 greenfield projects, most in conservation areas.
One of these, at Medna Sana
in Bosnia has provoked street protests. Ulrich Eichelmann, the director
of RiverWatch, an Austria-based conservation group, accused the firms
involved of double standards.
“The Sana is the most important river for the globally threatened Danube salmon and they are constructing a dam across its heart,” he said. “They would never be able to do that in Austria.”
The Austrian government has invested €45m in safeguarding national rivers that host the Danube salmon since 1999, according to research by RiverWatch.
How pristine rivers in the Balkans are in danger of being dismembered by hydropower installations.
by Pippa Gallop, Bankwatch - Cover photo (c) Olsi Nika
People often ask me why on earth I live in Croatia by
choice, considering that so many Croatians move abroad. They expect me
to mention the beautiful coast, the weather and the friendly people...
But apart from these, the first two things that come to mind are the
tasty vegetables and the clear, beautiful rivers.
After the initial quizzical look that follows, the vegetables are relatively easy to explain, but rivers? Uh?
For someone hailing from a part of England where our local
river was dry for most of the year and most of the other rivers were an
opaque dark green, many of the Balkan rivers are a revelation.
The
riverbanks are full of lush green vegetation, beautiful blue-green
damselflies flutter around, shoals of fish dart around, and... wow, the
water is clear! I want to dip in that...
So whenever
the weather is good and I have some free time, there’s nowhere else I’d
rather be than cycling along one of the beautiful Balkan rivers,
stopping occasionally to plop in for a swim. And so it was this year.
Some
friends and I spent a couple of weeks cycling around Bosnia and
Herzegovina, starting near the River Una and curving round via Sarajevo
to the Neretva Delta and ending up at the sea. The stunning variety of
landscapes compensated for the numerous hills we had to climb.
There was one thing that somewhat marred my
enjoyment though. For years I’ve had a tendency to recognise place names
by whether a multilateral development bank has financed a project
there, whether there is a coal power plant there or some other
environmental problem. It comes with the territory of being a Bankwatch
nerd.
But this year, having spent quite a chunk of the year
looking into financing for hydropower plants across the Balkans, it
reached extreme proportions.
Nearly everywhere we went, the place name or river name would ring a bell... because there’s a hydropower plant planned there.
This
map of hydropower plants in the Balkans shows the extremely high number
of planned and existing installations. Source: EuroNatur &
Riverwatch. An interactive version can be seen at balkanrivers.net/en/map
Take the river Sana, in Bosnia and
Herzegovina for example. It might not be as well known as the mighty
blue Neretva or the majestic Drina, but it varies along its flow from
rapid-flowing rafting territory, to wide shallow sections ideal for
paddling around or having a picnic.
And indeed on
sunny days the banks south of Prijedor are lined with local people
enjoying themselves. Further up the Sana becomes smaller and less
populated, and even more beautiful, first lined with trees, then
entering a gorge.
"Hey, let's build a power plant here"
Bosnia and Herzergovina
This was not the first thought that crossed my mind while
looking at the Sana, but for someone it obviously was. If you follow
the river up far enough you will come to this...
The Slovene company Interenergo, part of Austria’s Kelag Group, is
currently constructing a 4.9 MW hydropower plant near the Sana springs
near Ribnik
As well as making a huge mess of the landscape and drying out a
stretch of the river by diverting it into a tunnel, this plant threatens
one of the most important river sections for the endangered Huchen fish
in Europe.
There is a supreme irony here, as Austria has
spent millions of Euros restoring rivers with Huchen during the last
fifteen years, yet now its companies are destroying similar habitats
abroad.
The Medna Sana plant is just one of more than 180
plants planned in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Considering the country’s
beauty and biodiversity, if even a fraction of these are built, the
consequences will be severe
The
ill-fated Ulog plant on the beautiful upper Neretva provides a
cautionary lesson on poorly sited and poorly planned plants,
for example.
In April 2013 a construction permit was issued to the
project company EFT, but then in early July 2013, within just four days
of one another, two workers died in separate landslide incidents.
Since then, preparatory works have ground to a halt, and it looks like nature might just get its own back this time.
It’s
not just Bosnia and Herzegovina - no, not by a long way. Other
countries around the region have gone on hydro frenzies to an even
greater degree.
Pioneers and hyper-development
Bulgaria and Albania
Bulgaria was the frontrunner in this
field, with small hydropower plants appearing all across the country in
the late 2000s, many of them financed with public money by the European
Bank for Reconstruction and Development.
Environmentalists have
since been documenting the results of this hydro-rush, with dried up
streams and stagnant water painting a murky picture of once lively
rivers and streams.
The Little Iskar river has dried out after the Entropole hydropower plant was put into operation in 2012. Video: Balkanka Association
What has happened in Bulgaria is a stark reminder that small
hydropower plants are by no means necessarily less harmful than large
ones. Albania has taken hydro-fever to a new level, though. From 2007-2013when Sali Berisha was Prime Minister, the government awarded concessions for no less than 435 hydropower projects.
We’ve managed to identify 81 which are now operating, as well as 36
under construction, but the remainder seem still to be in the planning
stages for now.
Among the most controversial are those on the wild
Vjosa river, where no less than 38 hydropower plants are planned to
bluntly intrude on the river’s flow almost from its springs to the sea.
One of these is the 8 MW Lengarica hydropower plant on a Vjosa
tributary, promoted by Austrian Enso Hydro GmbH, which is already
under construction. The plant will change the water flow in the
Lengarica Canyon, a natural monument located downstream of the
plant, interfere with the Hotova Pine national park and impact the
tourism which is a significant source of income for local people.
The
fact that the Albanian authorities approved the plant inside a
national park bypassing the national environmental laws has remained
unchallenged by the public financiers. The International Finance
Corporation, Development Bank of Austria and the Green for Growth
Fund have supported the project with at least EUR 20 million in
public loans.
The plants that have been built have caused so many problems that
environmentalists have called for a three-year moratorium on
constructing new plants, while the permit documentation and concessions
are reviewed.
The issues go far beyond biodiversity. After construction started in October 2012 at the Bistrica 3 plant,
near Sarande in the south of Albania, local people complained that the
project polluted their water and damaged their agriculture In
August 2014, the authorities ordered a halt to construction works due
to environmental permit violations by the promoter company.
The story is similar in the case of the Ternove plant near Diber in
Central Albania. The fact that a European public bank – the European
Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) – is financing this 8.3
MW project does not seem to have helped to strike a balance between
energy and water.
In 2014 people from the villages of Valikardhë,
Zall, Sopot and Strikçan repeatedly protested against the construction
of the plant after about 2,000 hectares of land were left without
irrigation water due to diversion for use in the hydropower plant.
The silver lining
Projects being halted as a consequence of bad planning
With poor planning, corruption and failure to listen to
public opinion endemic throughout the region, cases like these are
popping up time and time again.
Sometimes the stories end happily,
like earlier this year when plans for small hydropower plants in Bosnia
and Herzegovina’s Una National Park were hastily withdrawn after public outcry, or in 2013 when the EBRD cancelled a loan for the Ombla hydropower plant in Croatia
Also this year, the concession for two dams planned on the Vrbas
river near Banja Luka in Bosnia and Herzegovina was finally cancelled,
more than 10 years after the projects were de facto stopped by protests.
In other cases like Boskov Most in the Mavrovo National Park in
Macedonia, the projects look like they are in their death throes but the
companies that have spawned them – and the (public) banks that finance
them – just can’t seem to give up on their wayward offspring, as if
delaying and doing new studies is going to somehow turn these into
environmentally and economically sane projects. It won’t. Just save
everyone the time and money and stop now.
Biodiversity vs. climate?
It’s
easy to fall back on the old ‘but we need energy’ arguments and accuse
those concerned about hydropower of stopping the development of
non-fossil forms of energy. But isn’t it those who are relentlessly
forcing through destructive, unpopular, and often uneconomic projects
that will do most to cause a backlash against renewable energy?
It
seems to me that if you want to promote something, you should do it in a
well-thought out way, that would attract people not repel them.
Damming
and diverting the region’s most beautiful rivers and destroying water
resources or places where people go to relax doesn’t seem like a good
start to me.
Study | December 11, 2015
With a deadly combination of Europe’s last wild rivers, rampant
corruption and inadequate nature protection, the potential for hydro
developments in southeastern Europe creating damage is immense.
In
order to address this issue, we need to know who is making it happen.
Our research aims - to the extent possible given the secrecy around the
financial sector - to find out who are the main actors involved in
financing hydropower projects in the region, both overall and inside of
protected areas.
Find out more at bankwatch.org
Save the Blue Heart of Europe
Save the Blue Heart of Europe is an international coalition and
campaign fighting to save the unique rivers of the Balkans by
preserving the most valuable streams and stretches with regard to
ecology and biodiversity. They shall be preserved for the benefit of
nature, biodiversity, and of the people for whom these rivers have a
deep symbolic and cultural meaning, as well as for those coming from
afar seeking to experience the last untouched rivers in Europe.
The
coalition believes that the economic future of the Balkan countries
can be more sustainably stimulated by conserving their natural
treasures and keeping their potential for sustainable socio-economic
development available for future generations.
Fine out more at balkanrivers.net
An event organised in the European
Parliament shows how hydroelectricity is wrongly perceived as a green energy
despite its important impacts on the environment.
Organised
by the Recreational Fisheries and
Aquatic Environment Forum in the European Parliament on the 10th of
November, the conference entitled “How green is hydropower?” addressed a widely
unknown aspect of “renewables” in a time of crucial decisions for the future
climate and energy policies.
“To reach the
CO2-emission and renewable goals we will depend on the contribution of
hydropower but we should not play down or ignore the unwanted effects on the
aquatic environment or even on our climate.“
Ulrike Rodust,
Member of the European Parliament
Different
speakers from the scientific community and environmental NGOs such as WWF highlighted
how the presence of dams affects water quality and makes fish migration almost
impossible, upholding the impoverishment of European rivers. Some engineering
works are built to mitigate these effects but water level fluctuations still cause
important damages on fish populations and biodiversity balance (vegetation,
river banks filling, stream banks alterations, invertebrates and young fish
mortality…). It is also proved that dams contribute to release methane - a
greenhouse gas - in the atmosphere.
The
European anglers, who organised this event, consider that this important information
should be taken into consideration when assessing the role that hydropower can
play to reach the EU energy and climate targets or when deciding on new hydropower
projects funded with public money.
The
reviews of the implementation of the European Union’s environmental legislation
show that the state of the rivers in Europe is alarming, with failing fish
populations being one of the most common reasons for failure in the Water
Framework Directive and that hydroelectricity has much to do with this. When
all EU’s biggest rivers are already dammed, the development of hydropower now
mainly concerns small scale plants in little rivers endangering fragile
ecosystems while producing only a small amount of energy. For example, around
7300 of the 8000 hydropower plants in Germany are small hydropower plants
producing 8-10% of the total generated electricity from hydropower and covering
only 0.05% of the total electricity consumption in Germany. What is more, many
projects to build new plants are under way, included inside Natura 2000 areas,
where the most valuable and threatened species and habitats in the EU can be
found.
The next
Recreational Fisheries Forum’s event will focus on the Danube River and its
endangered ecosystem including the iconic Huchen
(Danube salmon).
Members of the European Parliament
Mircea Diaconu, Maria Noichl and Ricardo Serrão Santos with one of the
speakers, U. Eichelmann from Riverwatch
Members of the European Parliament Mircea Diaconu and Maria Noichl
Magor Csibi, WWF
Romania, Ulli Eichelmann, Riverwatch, MEP Mircea Diaconu, MEP Maria Noichl, MEP
Ricardo Serrao Santos and Lourdes Alvarellos, European Commission
MEP Ricardo Serrão Santos drawing the conclusions
The representatives of EFTTA: Jean-Claude Bel and Janet Doyle
MEP
Alojz Peterle, MEP Franc Bogovic, Dejan Pehar, Director of the
Fisheries Research Institute of Slovenia, Fred Bloot, EAA President and
Borut Jerse, Ribiska Zveza Slovenije
Conference:
How green is hydropower? The impact of hydropower on EU's rivers and
the implementation of the Water Framework Directive
10 November 2015
European Parliament, Brussels
MEP
Ulrike Rodust, the European Anglers Alliance (EAA) and the European
Fishing Tackle Trade Association (EFTTA) are glad to invite you to the
conference “How green is hydropower? The impact of hydropower on EU's rivers and the implementation of the Water Framework Directive” organised by the European Parliament Forum on Recreational Fisheries and Aquatic Environment.
Where: European Parliament, ASP 3H1
When: 10 November 2015 from 18:30 to 20:00
The
objective of the event is to raise awareness about the negative impacts
of hydropower, and especially small dams, on the EU’s rivers ecosystems
(e.g. affecting water quality and fish migration). The event will also
be an opportunity to find out how the Water Framework Directive applies
to hydropower and to discuss the current situation in EU Member States.
You can download the programme of the conference here.
For registrations, please send an email to cecile@eaa-europe.eu
Здравейте,
След като на 30.06.2015г. беше изпратена Жалба до
европейска комисия, отнасяща се до неспособноста на институциите у нас
да се въведе ред и да се справят с проблемите и начина, по който се
управляват речните басейни у нас, заведена в комисията с входящ номер
CHAP(2015)02363,
на 06.01.2016г. беше изпратено първото допълнение
към изпратената вече жалба: "COMPLAINT TO THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN
COMMUNITIES CONCERNING FAILURE TO COMPLY WITH COMMUNITY LAW, Appendix
1", което засяга още по-задълбочено проблема, въвежда още повече казуси и
случаи на наблюдавани нарушения. Нещо много важно, което отличава това
приложение е това, че то акцентира върху случващото се не къде да е, а в
защитените територии, защитените зони по Натура, за които са похарчени
една камара европейски пари и др. Може да свалите двата документа от
линковете по-долу: https://drive.google.com/…/0B6ariUc5lVEUZGtLN1g1eEdEc…/view… https://drive.google.com/…/0B6ariUc5lVEUbTE4VWJ2bFIyO…/view…
Ще продължаваме да Ви информираме по темата. А в същото време, подробна
информация и визуализация на случващото се ще откриете на специално
създадения за целта сайт: http://dams.reki.bg/
Един много интересен филм, представящ в дълбочина проблема с
ВЕЦ в цяла Европа. Разбира се фокусът
пада не на нашите проблеми, но се вижда ясно, че хидроенергетиката създава хоризонтален
проблем и трябва да бъде адресиран на общоевропейско ниво. Вече държави като Дания са забранили изграждането
на ВЕЦ
European rivers are negatively impacted by thousands of small hydropower installations and barrages, with many more to come if the power industry has it their way.
През последните10-17годиниИндексаза експлоатацияна водите (WEI) е намалялв24страни от ЕИП(фиг. 1),в резултат наспестяване навода имерки за водна ефективност. Общоводовземаненамалялоколо 12%,ноедна петаот населението на Европавсе още живеев страни с висок воден стресс (около113 милионажители).
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