Brazilian Firm’s Mega-Dam Plans in Peru Spark Major Social Conflict

by David Hill / Mongabay

“I don’t want to sell my land because I’ve lived here since I was 17,” declared 82 year old María Araujo Silva. “This was where my children were born. I want to die here. That’s why I’m not in agreement. I’m not in agreement with the dam.”

Araujo Silva is outraged at plans by Peru’s government and Brazilian company Odebrecht to build a hydroelectric dam just downriver from her village, Huarac, on the Marañón River. She says it would flood her home, her neighbors and the land where she grows coconuts, oranges, avocados, mangoes, limes, manioc and maize.

“No one around here agrees with it. No one,” she told Mongabay.com. “An [Odebrecht] engineer says the reservoir isn’t going to flood us, that we don’t need to be worried, but I don’t believe him.”

Araujo Silva shares her mud-brick home with José Chacon Carrascal. He too is against the dam. “They say it’ll bring us work, but I already have work in my chacra [small farm]. I don’t agree. What would we do?”

Rio Grande 1 and 2: “no agreement”

Huarac is in the middle Marañón valley – the central section of a 1,700-kilometer (1,056-mile) long, free-flowing river that begins in Peru’s Andes and is the main source of the Amazon River.

Declared the country’s “Energy Artery” by law in 2011, the government is proposing to build over 20 dams on the Marañón’s main trunk, and possibly double that number in the Marañón basin. One dam just downriver from Huarac, Rio Grande 2, and another just upriver, Rio Grande 1, would be two of the first to go ahead. Together they could generate 750 megawatts (MW) of electricity.

Many of Araujo Silva’s neighbors feel similarly about the dams. Head downstream, along a windy unpaved road, and you come to the tiny settlement of Saumate where Angelica María Araujo lives alone, cultivating papayas and other crops to support herself and her daughter studying in the nearby town of Celendín. “No one is in agreement,” she said. “Where are they going to move us to?”

Araujo Silva’s niece, Aurora Araujo Dávila, lives in Celendín but owns several hectares in Huarac where she grows avocados, mangoes, papayas and oranges. “All this would be flooded by Rio Grande,” she said. “These were my father’s lands. I want to leave them to my children. Local people say they’re not going to let the company in.”

Of course, not everyone objects. Manuel Briones Perez, who says he has worked for Odebrecht, is in favor of the dams, like “many people”, like the “majority” of landowners. The project will bring benefits, he claims, including 8,000 jobs, education, reforestation and better roads. “Why wouldn’t we be in favor? Here we’re forgotten. The state doesn’t reach here,” he said.

Odebrecht: Short on information, long on rumor

Confusion about Rio Grande 1 and 2 is rife. Some people interviewed by Mongabay.com claimed to know details, like where the dams would be built and how high they would be, although those details varied from person to person. Others appeared to know little or nothing, or are confused by contradictory or changing facts.

“There’s no clear information,” said Victor Vargas Machuko, from Palenque, located at Kilometer 17 on the road running upstream from a village called Balsas. “They’re misleading us. The engineer Cesar [Gonzales, from Odebrecht] said it would be flooded between Kilometer 5 and Kilometer 16 — then Kilometer 18. Then the company said the dam would be 50 meters high, then 60, and the second dam would be 120 meters high, then a maximum of 130, but then it changed to 165.”

According to María Chavez Mendina, another Palenque resident, 50 percent of local people are in favor of the dams, 50 percent against.

“But there’s no type of information,” she said, “People just say we’ll be relocated. What we want is information from the company. Clear information. That’s what we’re asking for.”

In search of the truth

A “temporary concession” for Rio Grande 1 and 2 was granted by Peru’s government to Odebrecht Energy Peru, a subsidiary of the giant Brazilian Odebrecht Group, in November 2014. That gave the company the green light to do feasibility studies for both proposed dams.

The concession area runs for approximately 60 kilometers (37 miles) north to south, across the Amazonas, Cajamarca and La Libertad regions. It includes portions of Celendín, San Marcos and Cajabamba provinces, and numerous districts such as Utco, Jorge Chavez and Oxamarca.

Amec (Peru) S.A., a subsidiary of the United Kingdom-registered Amec Foster Wheeler, has been contracted by Odebrecht to write an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) of the dams. The EIA must be approved by Peru’s Energy Ministry (MEM) before construction begins.

Odebrecht has held two rounds of community meetings as part of the EIA process, but people interviewed by Mongabay.com were fiercely critical. They said the company has sabotaged meetings in various ways — by choosing days when many people couldn’t attend, by unmooring boats so others couldn’t travel, and by repeatedly failing to turn up at scheduled times and places.

Interviewees also said that some meeting participants voicing concerns about the dams have been insulted, intimidated and silenced. According to several sources, there was violent conflict at a meeting in one settlement, Jecumbuy, in March.

“There are people who are in favor who insult us. Those in favor insult those who aren’t [in favor],” said Vargas Machuka.

Community meetings: “80 percent are from elsewhere”

Arguably the most serious allegation against Odebrecht is that it loaded the community meetings with people who live elsewhere. Some Mongabay.com interviewees said that this was to give the impression that many people support the dams.

“They bring [them] from other places, but [those people] have nothing to do with it,” said a woman from Huanabamba, a village adjacent to Huarac, who didn’t want to give her name. “They’re not us. They don’t own land here. They’re the ones in agreement, but they don’t have anything to do with here.”

Some people claim that these outsiders are paid to attend the meetings, or that they work for Odebrecht or mining companies who stand to benefit from the electricity generated by the dams.

Eduar Rodas Rojas, president of the Federation of United Rondas Campesinas in Celendín, which would be impacted by both Rio Grande 1 and 2, called the outsiders “bought people.”

“They photograph them,” said Rodas Rojas. “They’re from elsewhere. With these photos, they trick the government into thinking local communities agree.”

Read more on Mongabay.com

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