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BRIEFING
The world's third-largest river reaches deep into the heart of China, one of the oldest civilizations on earth. Throughout the millenia this river, the "Yangtze", has been the vein of life for millions of people who farm the interior of the country--without it the crops that feed the rest of country could never have survived.
Yet the Yangtze's life-giving waters can also bring devastation and death. The river has flooded almost every 10 years of the more than 2000 years of the recorded history of China, causing great losses in terms of infrastructure and life for the businesses and industries that have sprung up along the water as well as the people who choose to reside near the river.
Construction for a multibillion dollar dam upstream from one of China's largest industrial and residential cities that could help control flooding was begun in 1994 by the Chinese government. This dam would also provide hydroelectric power to the country and, by increasing the width of the river, could create a large waterway that would potentially allow oceangoing ships to travel a thousand miles inland to the city of Chongqing.
However, building a dam is not by any means a perfect way to deal with the flooding. Critics warn that such a dam would destroy the delicate ecosystem of the river, killing most of the fish in the river at the site of construction and causing a great deal of pollution because the river would no longer be "flushed" by the current, but would instead remain basically a stagnant year round. Further, there has been concern that the sitting lake left behind by the dam would bury historically valuable sites such as temples, burial grounds, and other locations of archaelogical intrest. Finally, many fear that flooding caused by the dam would force between 1 and 2 million Chinese people to lose their homes and be forced to move elsewhere.
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