Were the tremors in Kandy a first warning of bigger trouble ahead?

The earth will surely move

By Carl Muller

Kandy's recent 'quake' has left many questions unanswered. Subsid- ence is the most certain explanation and, as geologists have pointed out the dams are now 'overloaded' and the reservoirs and basins have plenty in store. There was that time when the mania for dams became so marked that many quipped (at one time or another) that in this country it was simply a case of one dam thing after another.

Some years ago, Britain's most famous botanist and ecologist, David Bellamy sounded a warning. In fact, Bellamy made international headlines when he was imprisoned when campaigning against the building of big dams in Tanzania. Bellamy produced together with Brendon Quayle, another dedicated environmentalist and anthropologist, an award-winning Tyne Tees TV series "Turning the Tide" where he made the world aware of the senseless destruction of our natural resources and the threat to Spaceship Earth.

Bellamy's warning is very pertinent today because for one thing, he did say that the huge weight of water stored will cause subsidence shifting and earthquakes! This is something we can no longer sneer at as Kandy is surrounded by dams and the earth did shake, and it did in the vicinity of Polgolla, which, officials say is now full. People now swear that the water level seems to have dropped. That officials say is imagination. But is this a first warning of bigger trouble ahead?

In Turning the Tide Bellamy and Quayle had this to say:

"If it's all so disastrous, why do governments give the go-ahead for more and more superdams? The pursuit to large-scale development projects is tied up with conventional notions and ambitions of unlimited growth. The projects get bigger and bigger because the impulse is towards greater and greater growth. Big projects attract a lot of investment and employ a lot of people, creating many opportunities to try out new technology and support a wide range of service industries. The trouble is that sooner or later the dam bursts. As the development projects get bigger and growth projects wider, trouble builds up and inevitable collapse is quick and devastating...Most of us, Third World and First World, are going to lose unless the pattern of over-inflated industrial development changes radically; unless we're prepared to take a different direction altogether which is economically and environmentally sustainable.

"The repercussions are many. Third World politicians, whose dreams of glory are spurred on by big investments, are toppled by bloody coups; armaments, always in plentiful supply from foreign governments, furnish revolution, counter revolution, dictatorship, civil strife, war, and, as always, the death of many innocents..."Economic miracles" based on foundations as dubious and shaky as these can be nothing but castles built on sand. Sooner or later the tide of destruction, bankruptcy, social tension and environmental bite-back - everything from salination to silting and even earthquake - will wash them away. The reputations of their engineers and builders will become lost in the sands of time."

In 1984, the European Ecological Action Group received a report from E. Goldsmith and N. Hildyard of the Wadebridge Ecological Centre. The report titled 'THE SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL EFFECT OF LARGE DAMS' referred to a very high 'eve' of economic deceit and account-fudging in the construction of dams. Case histories from dams in California to India catalogue the following:

Fabrication of estimates; Over-estimation of job-creation; Over-estimation of recreational, irrigation and flood control benefits: Unrealistically low discount rates; Discounting the energy costs involved in construction; Ignoring the cost of de-commissioning the dams;Over-estimating their useful life; Failing to count flooded land as a cost; Taking little or no account of the short-and long-term environmental costs.

The evidence the report presented against big dams was overwhelming and the conclusions damning. The report concluded: "It thus seems that those who stand to gain politically and financially from the building of a large dam are willing to go to inordinate lengths to ensure that it will be built. Among other things, they are willing purposefully, to mislead those who must be persuaded of the dam's desirability and viability before the go-ahead to build it will actually be given. This they do by grossly exaggerating the dam's likely benefits and severely underestimating costs - in particular the social and ecological costs which are often totally ignored."

I do not know what you will call the following. Maybe Techno-verse. But I have been considering, and dimly too, the mess we are now in and I think all this water, collected in monstrous proportions around Kandy is going to be something we must earnestly put our minds to. Subsidence is one thing, but it is a fact that the earth IS moving. The weight of all the water must make her really sore. She's got to stretch, ease the weight as best as she can. And what happens if she decides to shake loose? Oh, I've heard it all...and from very eminent persons too. One has declared that nowhere have earthquakes been associated with dam building. Then what if such explosive "bowel reports" weaken the very structure of the dams? Who will be there to say anything if a dam bursts? Nobody, I think. In Kandy they will all be swimming for their lives'

And yet, we tamper on for progress sake.
To raise up meagre-monsters on the land.
These dams we build to harness water power-
So many now, they are getting out of hand.
In many countries, punsters smiling say
The land is dammed - and life has sure become
Just one dam thing that trails another, and
Do listen to the publicity drum!
It's all the rage to build a dam today...
To do so massive forest tracks are felled
And more is flooded, man and beast displaced
And all for what?
A pipe dream of progress?
Consider all the water that is stored -
The water, yes, but where is all the silt the river carried?
Where this precious load?
It's left behind, the reservoir to fill;
And catchment water stares up to the sky
And slow evaporates — and as it does,
Its salts then concentrate in levels high
(And this same water irrigates the fields).
The more that's used, the saltier the soil
And all this spells disaster for the crops
And mocks full well the farmer's honest toil;
While nutrient-rich, the silt just goes to waste
And on the farms, more fertilizer spent!
And is this just a costly exercise
To feed the ego of the government?

Maybe I'm being over-pessimistic, but the fact remains that Kandy has had fair warning. In "Turning the Tide," Bellamy and Quayle had much the same to say about Britain's uplands.

"The social and economic fabric of some 30% of Britain's most beautiful and inspiring landscape is at risk. There is nothing natural or inevitable about the problems of Britain's uplands. They are a direct result of how we interact with nature and the natural world. The social and environmental problems which we create for ourselves and for the generations which follow are a direct result of bad management and lack of foresight. The voice...of a changing, threatened environment - can be found throughout the passages of history and throughout the world. The circumstances vary, the causes change, but whether the first or Third World, the message is invariably the same: Dislocation, disruption, destruction, stagnation, decline and decay."

Let me put it in my own insufferable way:
Why must we threaten
Nature's habitats
And stamp upon our precious reserves so?
Hear how he trebles pleas to keep their land,
To nurse the trees and never lay them low
But government cares naught for lowly pleas
Until the pleading turns to anger red,
Then protestors are locked in narrow cells
And police states take census of the dead.
And to this day the battle rages on
Industrialists and developers file
In legions bold to harry and ravage
And mock the beauty of sweet Nature's smile.
They clash as conservationists arise
To guard the earth from predatory men
Who care not for the grandeur of the hills
Or for the vixen, in her chalky den
And this the tragedy - the tale of greed.
For progress must be fast ..no time to stare
And short-term development still commands
While power sits and nods without a care
For what is right and what is natural...
And cares not that a balance should be struck
That gives assurance in the years ahead.
Let all be dammed! We rule! We turn the buck!

I would like to remind that Dr James Lovelock, writing in the "New Scientist in 1975, likened the earth to a living creature. In his article, 'The Quest for Gaia" he wrote: "Living matter, the air, the oceans, the land surface, were part of a giant system which was able to control temperature, the composition of the air and sea, the pH of the soil and so on, as to be optimum for survival of the biosphere.

I'll leave you with this thought. A living earth, fed up at the way we are treating it. It's hard thinking time now although the most serious of men the world over declare that it is all too late. Now, I suppose, we can pat ourselves on the back and say that we can make the earth move. In Kandy, we certainly did!

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