San Roque Dam (Philippines)

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The San Roque Dam is a large dam on the Agno River in the Philippines. The dam is 210 m high and 1130 m length of the largest in Southeast Asia and about the twelfth - largest rockfill dam in the world.

The dam project in the province of Pangasinan in Luzon called San Roque Multi-Purpose Dam Project ( SRMDP ). It is used for irrigation of 87,000 hectares of land, flood control and power generation. The reservoir holds about 850 million cubic meters (another source gives 990 million to ) and is 12.8 square kilometers. He reaches up to Itogon in Benguet Province. The stored water is a hydroelectric power plant with 345 MW capacity is being operated.

The dam, which according to other sources may also be 200 meters high, consists of rockfill material. He was at San Manuel and San Nicolas 200 km ( another source: 500 km ) in the years 1994 to 2004 north of Manila built. The actual construction began in May 1998. The normal water level is 280 feet above sea level, but in a typhoon, the storage system can tolerate a water level of 290 meters. In August 2002, we began with the filling of the reservoir.

The dam has a spillway with six independent closures to prevent an overflow of the dam. It was designed for a 100 - year flood with a discharge of 12,800 m³ / s. It is 800 meters long, 100 meters wide and overcomes a difference in altitude of 165 meters. From 1999 to mid-2002 it took to dig it the necessary ground to the load-bearing rock. Two years after that 530,000 cubic meters of concrete were installed.

The two associated tunnels for water supply and drainage are each over 1200 meters long.

Criticism of the project

The Agno has always been considered by the indigenous people of the Ibaloi in Benguet as sacred. The river valley is their cultural heartland and home to their farms, houses and small mines for at least 500 years. The San Roque Dam is the long run destroy the home, the community and the livelihood of the Ibaloi. Therefore, most of the 35,000 Ibaloi, as well as the Kankanaey and Kalanguya who live there as well, sharpest opponents of the dam. They are also concerned that it will increasingly be in the catchment area on flood and sediment transport due to the mining activity, making their homes and burial sites were flooded and this would have a negative impact on water quality.

So far, more than 600 families have been expelled to make way for the reservoir. Many are struggling in the new quarters in the new settlements to survive and do not have land for their supply. Another 200 families had to give way to the excavation at the dam site. They were forced to leave their country. According to the guidelines of the designer, the Japanese Bank of Japan Bank for International Cooperation ( JBIC ), the evacuees must indeed get resources for their livelihood, but it did not affected by San Roque. The dam is in many ways not comply with the recommendations and principles of the World Commission on Dams ( World Commission on Dams, WCD).

It is planned that the dam is passed after the construction of the San Roque Power Corporation ( SRPC ) for operation. This company is a joint venture mainly foreign companies. The whole project is financed by Japanese banks. The contract terms are supposedly designed so that the Philippine government is carrying too much risk and responsibility in relation to the benefits. The Philippine pantograph NPC must, as they say, pay a fixed monthly price of more than $ 10 million for the deployment capacity, regardless of whether electricity is produced or not.