TAJIK HYDROELECTRIC PLANTS IN DANGER

style="mso-fareast-font-family:"MS Mincho"">According to the Tajik Emergency
Ministry of Tajikistan, the landslide at the Baipaza hydroelectric plant is still a real
threat for the plant itself and for the settlements located downstream the river Vahksh in
the southern Khatlon province, unless action is taken to prevent the slide forming a dam
and blocking the flow of the river. Lately (in September), the Asian Development Bank
(ADB) declared an earmarking of a $5.3 million loan to Tajikistan to prevent the disaster.

style="mso-fareast-font-family:"MS Mincho"">The peak of the danger at Baipaza
was in March-April 2002, in the period of spring showers and heavy rains. This summer,
several assessment missions comprising international and local experts explored the high
clay slopes in the areas adjacent to the hydropower station. The landslide is carrying
between 5 and 10 million cubic meters of mud; and it has come very close to the banks of
the river.

style="mso-fareast-font-family:"MS Mincho"">Initially, both the Energy and
Emergency Ministries were intending to cope with the mudslide by setting off a series of
controlled blasts to break up the mass, - Victor Silantiev, the Ministry of Energy leading
specialist says, - According to estimates, some 500 shells would have been needed to carry
out the operation. Besides that, we should have involved the Tajik Defense Ministry
soldiers and the Russian 201st motorized division. Eventually, we rejected that idea. The
blasts could have provoked unforeseen consequences with devastating results.

style="mso-fareast-font-family:"MS Mincho"">That is why the Tajik government
approached the Asian Development Bank. An ADB loan will be used for drainage works and
reinforcement of the slopes. The country will receive excavators and monitoring equipment
for long-term studies and scientific activities. Maintaining reliable flows in the Vakhsh
river is vital for Tajikistan and the downstream countries of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

style="mso-fareast-font-family:"MS Mincho"">The Baipaza plant is not the only
power supply object in danger. Significant funds and essential technical support are
needed for the rehabilitation of the Nurek hydroelectric plant, the biggest energy
producer in Tajikistan and Central Asia. Expensive outdoor switchboards and high voltage
pylons' concrete platforms are caving in because of the formation of crevices and craters
in saline deposits.

style="mso-fareast-font-family:"MS Mincho"">The construction of a huge
hydroelectric power station at Roghun, 100 kilometers northeast of the Tajik capital of
Dushanbe, had special strategic importance in Soviet times. It was designed not only for
Tajikistan's needs, but also for provision of electricity to other Soviet Central Asian
republics. In the early 1990s, with the outbreak of civil war in Tajikistan, construction
of the plant was stopped. The plant's rated earthquake capacity is supposed to withstand a
quake measuring up to 10 on the Richter scale, but many scientists warn that restarting
construction of the plant would be dangerous. Experts have evidence that the soil in the
area contains large amounts of limestone, and the huge volume of water in the plant's
reservoir could cause earthquakes.

style="mso-fareast-font-family:"MS Mincho"">Since last winter, there have been
quite a number of earthquakes in Tajikistan. In January 2002, several people died, dozens
were injured when a severe quake struck several villages around Roghun. 1,300 villagers
were left homeless. That particular earthquake with an epicenter in Afghanistan, reached a
force of 7.2 and caused the movement of mud and stones, forming two huge cracks on the
hill's slope near the Baipaza plant. The frequent rainfalls last spring kept abundantly
feeding the clay slopes with moisture. Uncontrolled deforestation of slopes in many
regions of Tajikistan is another danger, and not only for the energy sector.

style="mso-fareast-font-family:"MS Mincho"">Tajikistan is the second country in
the world in terms of specific share and the eighth in terms of absolute share of water
resources per kilometer of territory; 54 percent of Central Asia's annual water stock is
formed in Tajikistan's glaciers and highland rivers. Tajikistan supplies more than half of
Central Asia's water. However with the lowest per capita income among the former Soviet
republics, Tajikistan has an outstanding energy debt of $51 million. Outages in the
electricity grid and heating system, especially in the wintertime, have become the norm;
gas and coal are in great demand. As for gas supply, Tajikistan largely depends on its
closest neighbor, Uzbekistan. The latter demands prepayment, and very often switches off
the pipeline without any notifications and explanations. Regrettably the two Central Asian
neighbors still cannot adjust a system of mutually profitable economic interactions, and
ensure adequate services for each other.

style="mso-fareast-font-family:"MS Mincho"">Lately, there have been new debates
about the renewal of construction works at the Roghun power station. Maybe it is for the
better that the absence of investors is preventing new progress in this dangerous venture.

style="mso-fareast-font-family:"MS Mincho"">Konstantin Parshin is
a freelance journalist based in Tajikistan