Friday, April 19, 2013

Egypt worried over potential negative impact of Ethiopian Dam

(Apr 19, 2013, (Egypt))--A report on the effects of the Ethiopian mega dam on Egypt’s water safety is to be issued late May, government official says. An Egyptian government official said a technical report on the impact of the new Ethiopian mega dam, currently under construction, will reveal the need for Addis Ababa to attend to safety and environmental concerns at the construction process.

The report will also reveal concerns of potential negative influence on Egypt’s share of the Nile Water "depending on the mechanism and time of water storage behind the dam," the government official added.

The report will be issued at the end of the 6th session of a joint Egyptian-Sudanese-Ethiopian technical committee in late May. The committee has been meeting for almost two years to examine the plan of construction for the Renaissance Dam, which Ethiopia had started building with the intention of storing 84 billion cubic meters of water. The water stored will then generate electricity sufficient for its advanced use and for exports to neighbouring countries, not excluding Egypt.

The report, according to the same government official, is not suggesting that the Renaissance Dam will drive Egypt into "water starvation but it is certainly saying that certain measures have to be followed to make sure that Ethiopia gets the water necessary for storage in the dam in line with Egypt’s consent and needs."

Planning of Nile dam
Originally conceptualised in the early 1960s by an American-African team of irrigation engineers to deconstruct the High Dam project, championed at the time by Gamal Abdel Nasser, the Renaissance Dam was baptised in the original blueprint as the Border Dam.

It was one of four dams the American-African team said could be built over the Blue Nile, which provides Egypt about 60 percent of its annual over 55 million cubic metres of Nile waters. Read more from ahram online »

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