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The Rio Teta dam
Rainy season over Casco Viejo
Rainy season orchids
 

The Rio Teta and Rio Mata Ahogado dams: what's at stake

photos by Douglas Allen, captions by Eric Jackson

Two pretty San Carlos district rivers that provide habitat for wildlife stand to be reduced to a trickle by a supposed hydroelectric project --- "supposed" because they would involve the damming of one river and the diversion of another for an insignificant amount of power to be generated. But The Panama News has learned that the real business purpose of the project isn't power generation but to provide water for the golf course around which the Vista Mar residential development is being built. Calling it a small-scale power generation project, however, allows its developers to avoid the jurisdiction of the National Environmental Authority (ANAM) and deal with the more scam-friendly Public Services Regulating Board (Ente Regulador), thus obviating the need for environmental impact studies, public hearings and so on. These photos show some of the stakes in this game.

Not shown and recently discovered by way of legal wrangling are the implications of the project's "phase two." That would divert the Rio Mata Ahogado to appropriate its water for this private project. Set aside the environmental and recreational implications of that and consider just one thing: that particular river is the source of the town of San Carlos's drinking water.

The traditional popular public recreation activities of the local people? Forget them --- somebody is placing greater value on a private golf course that most local kids would never be able to afford.

The big pipe that goes to the right is theoretically the one that will serve a power plant, while the little one that goes to the left drains off to somewhere else, for some purpose other than power generation.

This "mini" hydroelectric project, in its first phase, encompasses a four-kilometer construction area and a large earthen dam. But what's also important in this picture is the color. As in white at the left of the photo, at one end of the dam. As in, that edge of the dam is a hill made out of --- sand. Won't that be comforting for the people living downstream along the Rio Teta --- standing between them and a wall of water that can destroy their property and drown anyone who is unlucky enough to be in the way will be --- a sandhill.

One thing that would lead a reasonable person to conclude that hydroelectric generation is a sham to avoid environmental regulations on a project that exists for another purpose is the laughable quality of the pipe that's supposed to serve the power station. Made out of used materials and built on an unsecured base of shifting red clay, it's literally coming apart at the seams well before the project is done.

Another public recreation asset that stands to give way for a golf course is the surfing at the mouth of the Rio Teta. Cut the flow of water down the river, and you cut the flow of sand from the mountains to the beach. Soon the sand bar that shapes the waves and makes for an excellent surfing beach will disappear. Thus surfing that's open to the public for no charge would be abolished in favor of golfing for which people must pay.

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