Fifteen courageous local deputies have joined forces to lobby for the closure of the controversial Sanmenxia hydroelectric station.

The deputies to the Shaanxi Provincial People's Congress appealed for the closure of the Sanmenxia complex, claiming its reservoir is the root cause of yearly worsening floods that hit a large area of the northwestern province.

The station, situated in Shaanxi's neighboring province of Henan, was built in the 1950s. Although the power station brought many benefits to Henan, Shaanxi has not been so lucky.

The proposal to close the power station, which is situated on the Yellow River and also functions as a major reservoir, was put forward at the ongoing session of the people's congress in Xi'an.

Xue Dongjiang, who initiated the proposal, said that stopping the operation of the reservoir is the best way to thoroughly solve the flood problem in the Weihe River in Shaanxi's Weinan region.

The high water level in the reservoir made a large amount of mud and sand deposit in the Weihe River, a tributary of the Yellow River. Due to that, the Weihe, which mainly runs through Shaanxi, causes heavy flooding when hit by heavy rains, Xue said.

Heavy rains lasting for 20 days hit most parts of the province last summer, causing the worst floods in the area for decades. More than half a million people suffered flood damages in areas neighboring the Sanmenxia Reservoir.

Direct economic losses were estimated at 2.3 billion yuan (US$277 million).

The disaster made local people think hard about the cause. After careful investigation, local experts reached the conclusion that the reservoir was responsible.

The disaster reportedly attracted the close attention of central government officials and experts in Beijing.

In October, just after disaster struck Weinan prefecture in Shaanxi, the Ministry of Water Resources held a special conference in Zhengzhou, Henan, where the Sanmenxia Reservoir is located, to discuss how to control mud and sand in the Weihe River.

Suo Lisheng, deputy minister of water resources, said the reservoir benefited some areas, but a high price was paid by residents in the Weihe area.

Water stored in the reservoir caused deposits of mud and sand in the Weihe River.

The reservoir raised the level of flowing water of 1,000 cubic meters per second at Tongguan by five meters. After the 1990s, the situation got even worse.

In the early 1970s, the Ministry of Water Resources, together with the governments of Shaanxi and Henan as well as Shanxi and Shandong provinces, which are situated also close to the reservoir, launched a project to remove the mud and sand deposits from the reservoir to lower the flowing water level. But the problem was not solved for good.

In the proposal handed in by Xue and his partners, three measures were put forward to thoroughly solve the problem, including one that calls for stopping water storages and power generating to lower the bed and water level in the Weihe River.

Local government officials in Shaanxi seemed cautious when commenting on the issue

(China Daily February 6, 2004)