Not So Clean

"Part of our job is trying to educate people in Brazil about
the enormous impact dams have caused in terms of
expelling people from their homes and destroying biodiversity."

Conrad Johnson

The man with the biggest job in the electric sector in Brazil is Glenn Switkes. This American's job is not in generation or distribution; he runs the Latin American office for the International Rivers Network. The I.R.N., a Berkeley, California-based NGO, has only one office outside the US. From São Paulo Mr. Switkes supervises the spending of about 10 percent of the organization's yearly expenditures of $1,500,000, all meant to protect the world's largest hydrological resources and the citizens who live closest to them.

The funding is modest, but the job is the world's largest. Ninety five percent of Brazil's usable energy on any given day is river reservoir generated. Brazilian engineers claim that more than 70 percent of the country hydroelectric potential is yet to be harvested. In short, if river conservation is your goal, it is in Brazil that the most resources need protecting.

Our interview was initially delayed because Mr. Switkes needed to attend to a professional problem in the Brazilian North. An indigenous leader living near and opposing the controversial 11,000 MW Belo Monte dam site on the Xingu River (one of ten Amazon tributaries larger than the mighty Mississippi) was assassinated in his own home, most likely by political enemies. "Brazil's mania for mega-projects is supported by corrupt local officials eager to grab short-term profits from these boom and bust projects, and willing to have killed anyone who gets in their way," Mr. Switkes explained.

Brazzil: What have been your organizations largest accomplishments in Latin America?

Switkes: The issues in Latin America, especially Brazil, are so large they never go away. Our principal function seems ever to be the same: helping to build and professionally inform local and regional groups that are resisting economic development that improper use of water resources affects the ecology of rivers and the people who live with and rely on those rivers. Largely we help local activists, on a continuing basis, get the technical information and legal arguments they need to accomplish their purposes.

Brazzil : Are the fights mostly about the environmental and human impacts of dams sited for electric generation purposes?

Switkes: No, hydrovias or transportation projects for agricultural products have been an equal or larger concern. Some of the richest and most unique ecologies in the world like the Pantanal of Mato Grosso and the Bananal Island on the Araguaia in Tocantins face destruction by industrial (or river channelization) projects on respectively the Paraguay, Araguaia, and Tocantins Rivers. We hope to be as successful there as our allies have been in opposing the U.S. Corps of Army Engineers on the Mississippi. Studies have shown these industrial transportation projects do not provide cheaper transportation for soybean exports than other means such as existing rail lines.

Of course new Amazon basin electric projects like Belo Monte, especially since they are being heavily resisted by indigenous peoples and where transmission lines will need to cross over 1000 kilometers of the Amazon to reach connections to the North-South trunk are important too. Tucuri displaced 40,000 people; Balbina near Manaus flooded 2400 square kilometers of Amazon rainforest to produce a mere 250 megawatts of electricity—virtually no energy in the dry season. The 800 families that took refuge on islands in the Tocantins created by the Tucuri reservoir are now threatened because Eletronorte wants to raise the reservoir depth another 2 meters. As I said, the issues never go away and we have been drawn somewhat into the question of Environmental Impact Statements for thermo generation of late.

Brazzil: How is that?

Switkes: Brazil is new to the question of air pollution. Brazilian state, local and federal environmental authorities have been right to question some licenses for the `Emergency Thermo Plan' because some natural gas generation is planned for urban areas that already have serious air quality problems. Some of our critics see us as anti-development but that isn't true. We know where to get the mostly volunteer independent experts to do the kinds of studies these problems always entail. Many of Brazil's reservoirs, especially in the Amazon region, could be highly affected if Kyoto is for example modified to include methane emissions and not just carbon. Hydroelectric generation is not as clean as most Brazilians assume.

Brazzil: What about the new small hydroelectric dams?

Switkes: There has been very little local objection to most of these projects. Where there are local groups who oppose them for environmental or human rights reasons we help them, but these are usually because of specific local situations such as threats to an ecological reserve. Unlike the upper Midwest in the States where conservationists celebrate every time a small dam is removed, small dams are one of the alternatives which can help Brazil out of its energy crisis.

We at I.R.N. understand Brazil needs electric energy to develop economically, and frankly the rationing programs is welcome because it may make us all more conservation conscious in the long run. There is also much inefficiency in the transmission and distribution systems; more investment there could save needless loss, some of our experts say, equal to the value of a year's production at Itaipu.

Brazzil: What about the future for Brazilian water and hydroelectric management?

Switkes: From our point of view it is in the strengthening of civil society and particularly institutions and groups outside the structures of party politics. Even opposition political parties, like the PT [Workers' Party], tend to accept hydroelectricity as the cheapest and cleanest form of energy available. Part of our job is trying to educate them as well, about the enormous impact dams have caused in terms of expelling people from their homes and destroying biodiversity.

Tucuri was built to serve the aluminum business, not to address the needs of the 20,000,000 Brazilians, mostly rural, without reliable electric service. Good water and energy management is not incompatible with market economies properly regulated, and with transparent and democratic energy planning. That is certain. Much progress needs to be made getting industry to pay their fair shares; one of the reasons electric service is not universalized is that political authority has thought it more important (even found it personally more profitable) to subsidize industry in the name of economic growth. Energy intensive industries use about 40 percent of Brazil's energy and are highly inefficient job producers. Of course, just such policies are why income is more poorly distributed in Brazil than in any other major country.

Brazzil: Which are the present groups you believe are pointing the way?

Switkes: One of the strongest challenges to Brazil's energy policy is coming from the National Movement of Dam-Affected People (MAB), which played an important role in the World Commission on Dams two-year studies. MAB has worked with technical experts to demonstrate that there are cheap and quick ways to provide energy in Brazil and that do not require destroying rivers. Another important group of actors is the Rios Vivos coalition, which brings together 300 environmental and alternative development organizations and indigenous populations from the La Plata Basin. Rio Vivos has been instrumental in the fight against hydrovias, and now works with groups from the Mississippi River region to show the interrelationships between problems affecting water resources in South and North America alike.

Conrad Johnson, the author, is an American attorney, permanently residing in Brazil. He writes for various publications on development and legal issues in Latin America. You can reach him at conrad@alternativa.com.br  

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