China> Mainers get chance to cruise Yangtze River ahead of dam project

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CHONGQING, China — By the time we reached this riverside city, our Maine delegation had splintered into three groups.

The Maine legislators group, in China to conduct trade talks with government and industry leaders, had “successfully” completed its mission, said Maine Trade Council President Perry Newman on Friday, Oct. 24. That day, Newman boarded his return flight to the United States.

Others in the group of 25 chose to stay in China as tourists. Two legislators headed off to tour Beijing, eight boarded a plane for Shanghai and the remaining 14 set their sights on Chongqing.

We were here to cruise the Yangtze River as it flowed through the Three Gorges — Qutang, Wu and Xiling. Soon, these major tourist attractions of the People’s Republic of China will be transformed forever. By 2009, the world’s largest-ever hydroelectric project will dam the river’s flow and create a 400-mile-long, 575-foot-deep reservoir — a body of water longer and deeper than Lake Superior — and take away the steep-gorge attraction of the Yangtze.

By Nov. 16, the Yangtze — third-largest river in the world — was closed in some sections to commercial and tourist traffic as a large diversion channel made way for the massive dam. By early December, much of the dam will be in place, rechanneling the water and its traffic.

Waiting for our cruise liner, the Wan Jin, a 60-meter-long, diesel-powered river cruiser, we stayed in this capital city of Szechwan Province for only 48 hours. But it was long enough to sample the throat-burning smog that frequently lies heavy over this city of 7 million. During our entire stay, a misty fog shrouded this mountainside community, built on slopes that lead sharply to the river.

The city’s steep and curving streets give it a San Francisco-like character. But the many markets, street peddlers, brick-and-mortar stores and houses, and seemingly out-of-place high-rise hotels and office buildings, give notice that this is China — with the modest mortar dwellings of the poor presenting an inadequate, crumbling barrier against the urban sprawl of a city under dramatic growth and change.

As we inched through the narrow streets of this city aboard our tour bus, we were accompanied by the constant noise of automobile horns as small, red, three-passenger taxis slid past us on both the right and left sides, barely missing oncoming vehicles.

We had experienced constant traffic in other cities in China, but this city is noted as among the worst. Even with the absence of bicycles — steep hills and air quality discouraging such modes of transportation — the competition for driving surface is nearly as bewildering as the phenomenal lack of accidents.

Our tour guide, Phambro, said that the best place to view the city is from the Pavilion, an eight-story, templelike structure that sits atop the city’s highest point, a 4,000-foot hill. But even those who managed the 120 steps to the top were denied good viewing by the thick smog and the ever-present smoke from nearby steel mills.

Particulate matter carried from the mills and from the auto manufacturing plant across the Yangtze settles everywhere. A fine mist the day of our visit, which local residents say occurs frequently, turned the dust into a mud-colored slurry that coated sidewalks and streets and was distributed on everything from vehicles to clothing by the constant traffic.

Tour guide Phambro, who had an “old Chinese saying” for nearly every occurrence, said the rain and mist were good fortune. “Only distinguished guests of our city arrive in the rain and leave in the rain,” he told us.

We stopped during our bus tour of the city at a fire station to satisfy the curiosity of one of our delegation, Livermore Fire Chief Randy Berry.

It was the first fire station we had seen despite visiting nearly a dozen cities throughout China’s midsection. The fire bell rang constantly — drawing crowds of onlookers — as Legislator-Chief Berry had his picture taken with his Chinese counterparts.

Next door, a man and his wife stood in the doorway of their shop, offering for sale their only merchandise, new red fire extinguishers, which the man hawked from the sidewalk.

Our visit to Chongqing ended with a long climb down granite stairs to the Wan Jin, a 110-passenger riverboat that would be home for two days and a journey through the Three Gorges.

Our first day of travel on the Yangtze River led us to Fengdu, popularly known by locals as Ghost Town, a name earned not because of its past but because of its future. When the six-story-high dam closes off the waters of the Yangtze early in the next century, its level will rise more than 50 meters at Fengdu, completely covering the town that once was home to more than 20,000 people.

Already completed are homes on a hillside across the river, at a point much higher than Fengdu. The displaced residents are being offered a few hundred dollars each to purchase one of these new homes. There are no other options.

Fengdu is just one of a dozen cities and more than 1,400 towns and peasant villages that will be inundated as the Yangtze overflows its current banks. The city already is beginning to empty of inhabitants, but not of the street hawkers who peddle to last-minute gawkers everything from film to fruit to maps and souvenirs; and, of course, the day we were there, umbrellas.

Certain to be a survivor of the man-made flood will be the temple of Fengdu, which dates back 500 years to the Ming Dynasty. Those of us who climbed the more than 700 steps to the top can attest to the fact that the aged shrine is nearly 1,000 feet above the projected level of the river.

During the second day of our trip down the Yangtze, we were given an opportunity to tour the Lesser Three Gorges — a small replica of their giant cousins created as the Daning River cuts through the soft stone of this valley.

We transferred to smaller boats to travel the Daning, with our vessel carrying about 40 passengers and a crew of four. Even with its inboard diesel power, on occasion two men at the front of the boat used 20-foot-long bamboo poles to push the vessel away from rocks and guide it through rushing water that threatened to overpower the engine.

In 1988, the Chinese government constructed a number of stops along the river’s edge, and the government encourages local residents to sell their wares to tourists, as long as they share a part of the profits through a peddler’s tax collected by local government officials daily.

Our five-hour tour of the Daning did little to prepare us for our encounter with Wu Gorge, a narrow cut through 2,000-foot-high cliffs that tower over the Yangtze.

The steep, hilly edge of the Yangtze is sprinkled with homes, businesses and a few factories — some bearing a large orange banner across the entrance that marks those already taken by the government in advance of the floodwaters.

The majesty of nature abounds as the Yan Lin continues its voyage. Many of the hills bordering the majestic Yangtze show in vivid green the terrace farming practice used by farmers in this mountainous part of China. Terrace, or contour farming, discourages erosion of precious topsoil.

Where there is no soil, the naked sections of rock show evidence of how ancient glacial activity carved lines into the face of sheer cliffs. Only the occasional sighting of a bird or monkey breaks the serenity of these giant hills that loom out of the Yangtze River.

The 2,000-mile-long flow of water of the Yangtze cuts through the midsection of China at a rate of 90,000 cubic yards per second, snaking between the steep cliffs of the mythologized Three Gorges, named for a 120-mile section of the river.

At Sandouping, several miles downriver from Wu Gorge — the center and most spectacular of the gorges — a slab of concrete weighing in excess of 25 million tons and reaching as high as a 60-story building will block the river’s flow. When complete, the dam will run more than a mile across the Yangtze.

The China Yangtze Three Gorges Project Development Corp., a government-established agency, is overseeing the massive project, and nearly every day is quoted in the country’s English newspaper, China Daily, citing positive points about the project and issuing statements that attempt to quell negative rumors.

The most recent concern for the agency is a claim by scientists that a diversion channel at the Sandouping dam site is filling with silt carried by the brown-colored waters of the Yangtze, a problem they claim will plague the future dam. The agency disputes the claim and states instead that the rapid flow of water will clear away any silt deposits.

In early November, the diversion channel was scheduled to open, draining the main riverbed for construction of the dam.

Before that, more than 40,000 workers labored at the dam site and will continue to work well into the next century, probably not completing all the work planned on the massive project until 2009.

Originally, cost of the project was estimated at $17 billion. Some believe that figure has more than doubled.

The giant hydroelectric dam, using 26 turbines, will produce 18,200 megawatts of electricity, as much energy as 15 nuclear-powered generating plants. By comparison, the Grand Coulee Dam in the United States produces 6,809 megawatts. The world’s largest current hydro dam is in Brazil and produces 12,600 megawatts.

Some contend that the dam will make a great contribution toward flood control when heavy spring rains swell the Yangtze and other major rivers in this part of China. Major flooding has occurred in the past, with some estimates claiming that as many as 300,000 people have lost their lives.

Others claim that construction of the dam only plays into the hands of the enemies of China. One strategically placed bomb could inundate the lowlands beyond the dam, wiping out millions.

Damming the Yangtze has for many years been a popular proposal among some Chinese government leaders. Sun Yat-sen, one of the heads of the Republic of China, is credited with dreaming up the idea of damming the Yangtze, an idea that was quickly supported by his protege, Chiang Kai-shek. Mao Zedong included the dam in a 1956 poem, noting further support.

Today’s Chinese President Jiang Zemin has made it a top priority of his administration.

Whether the Three Gorges Hydro-Electric Dam will prove to be the answer to China’s power problems only remains to be seen. But one thing is for certain — this group of Mainers was there to cruise the Yangtze River before man’s involvement could change its character forever.

Members of the Maine legislative delegation who were aboard the Wan Jin were: Rep. and Mrs. Randall Berry of Livermore; Sen. Betty Lou Mitchell and her son, Brian Moore, of Etna; Rep. Scott Cowger of Hallowell; Rep. Roy Nickerson of Turner; Rep. Patricia Lemaire of Lewiston; Rep. and Mrs. Charles Laverdiere of Wilton; Rep. and Mrs. Michael McAlevey of Waterboro; former state Rep. Fred Richardson and his wife of Portland; and myself.

The trade delegation’s visit to China was organized by Richardson, who was a member of the Maine Legislature in 1993 and conducts international trade in a number of other countries.

The group returned to the United States on Saturday, Nov. 1.