“This river will bury the living and the dead,” said Enver Vasilaj, 93, standing by the Vjosa, one of Europe’s last wild waterways, which runs uninterrupted from its source in northwest Greece to the Adriatic Sea.
Vasilaj is among many residents of the remote Albanian village of Kut who are worried about the impact on their lives and livelihoods of a planned hydroelectric dam at Pocem, a few kilometers downstream.
Despite election campaign pledges to preserve the Vjosa and create a national park around the river, Albania’s government in May defied local and international opposition and granted initial approval to a proposal by two Turkish firms to build a 25m, 99.5 megawatt dam at Pocem.
Residents of Kut, 170km south of Tirana, fear the lake created by the 100 million euro (US$110 million) dam will engulf their fields and olive groves — even the cemetery — leaving only their houses above the water line.
“Here we have a curse: ‘Let your tomb be flooded,’” said Dilaver Murataj, who is in charge of Kut’s land registry.
“It is a serious curse,” he added, explaining that land was so cherished here that even when people emigrated they did not sell up.
According to Olsi Nika of the environmental association EcoAlbania, about 178 concession agreements have been signed for the construction of about 502 new hydropower plants.
Albanian Minister of Energy and Industry Damian Gjiknuri said the government was determined to press ahead with the Pocem dam.
“A developing country cannot be a museum. Hydropower has drawbacks, but every development has a cost to the environment,” he said.
Exactly what this cost will be remains uncertain, as there has been no information about when or even whether an environmental impact assessment — usually a prerequisite in dam projects — would be carried out.
Once energy self-sufficient, Albania now produces only 70 percent of its electricity needs, Gjiknuri said.
For the authorities, the mountainous country’s river system offers an easy source of energy. Only 30 to 35 percent of Albania’s hydropower potential has been developed so far, according to the International Hydropower Association.
However, it said that the “delays due to social and environmental concerns have been a deterrent to major projects.”
“We will try to convince our friends there that it is ... a chance for tourism to maintain the unique Balkan rivers in their natural state instead of building hydro plants everywhere,” said Knut Fleckenstein, the European Parliament’s rapporteur for Albania.
He said Albania was losing between 30 and 50 percent of its electricity production to inefficiencies in the distribution network.
“It is not necessary that they have to take each and every river,” he said.
Although regional officials have called for consultations with those who would be affected by the dam, residents remain largely in the dark about what will happen next. No one from Tirana has visited Kut and no date has been set for the start of the project.
Rahit Shehu, 65, said he only learned from a television program that his land was threatened and that he would be compensated to the tune of 1 euro per square meter.
“At that price, I cannot even buy gas for my tractor,” he said.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was