Egypt requests Great Millennium Dam studies from Ethiopia

Al-Masry Al-Youm - ‎Mar 31, 2011‎
Irrigation Minister Hussein al-Atfy on Thursday said Egypt is awaiting the Ethiopian government’s reply to its request for technical and environmental studies of the Great Millennium Dam. Ethiopia is building the dam on its borders with Sudan.

“We shall examine the studies to determine the adverse repercussions on Egypt’s Nile water quota,” he said, adding that Egypt would resort to the international community if Ethiopia failed to reply.

“According to international law, Ethiopia must supply Egypt with studies of dams it intends to build,” he explained.

For his part, former Irrigation Minister Nasr Eddin Allam warned that Ethiopia intends to build a total of four dams so as to control Blue Nile water, which supplies Egypt with 85 percent of its Nile quota.

“The reserve capacity of those dams is 141 billion cubic meters of water,” he said, pointing out that Egypt’s Lake Nasser has a capacity of 120 billion cubic meters.