Huge funds embarked to clear Three Gorges Dam
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2006-05-19 10:47
China has to spend 10 million yuan (1.3 million U.S. dollars) annually to
prevent upstream garbage runoffs from piling up at the mammoth Three Gorges Dam,
so as to ensure safe operation of the world's largest water control project.
According to officials with the China Yangtze Three Gorges Project
Development Corporation, the inflowing garbage runoffs for the Three Gorges
reservoir amount to 100,000-200,000 cubic meters annually, most of which
accumulate in flooding seasons.
The corporation has spent more than 20 million yuan (2.5 million U.S.dollars)
on building a runoff-clearing vessel, so far the largest of its kind in China,
the officials said.
Launched in 1993,the 180-billion-yuan (22.5 billion U.S.dollars) Three Gorges
project, including a 185-meter-high dam and 26 generators on both banks of the
Yangtze River, is being built in three phases on the middle reach of the
Yangtze.
It is scheduled for completion in 2009 and by then, it will be able to
generate 84. 7 billion kwh of electricity a year. The project will also function
to harness flooding and benefit shipping.
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