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The High Dam of Aswan
The construction of the High Dam of Aswan was a highly controversial topic. The proposal for building the dam was based on the need for irrigation, to help relieve Egypt of its historic problems with the seasonal flooding of the Nile, and to create hydroelectric power. However, the dam also presented many significant negative consequences, as it had a large detrimental impact both ecologically and agriculturally. The creation of Lake Nasser, the largest man made lake in the world, also endangered many archaeological remains and displaced ninety-thousand Nubians who were relocated with varying degrees of acceptance to the New Valley oasiss in the Western Desert http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamal_Abdel_Nasser).
Originally, the US and Britain were going to help fund the building of the dam, but they withdrew upon learning Egypt had signed a secret arms contract with the Eastern Bloc countries in Europe. As a result, President Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal to gain control of the hard currency tariff earnings, which precipitated the Suez Crisis and the expulsion of British foreign interests in Egypt. With the Suez tariffs and financial support from the USSR, Nasser was able to finance the dam's construction. Egypt leaned further away from Western capitalism and toward Eastern bloc Socialism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aswan_dam). Evidence of this relationship can be seen at the "Lotus Flower" Tower near the dam. The tower was built to commemorate the Russo-Egyptian partnership in the building of the dam. Inside the tower, there is a commemoration wall celebrating the collaboration between the USSR and Egypt.
For Nasser, the dam became a powerful symbol of Egypt's nationalist movement under his leadership and he suppressed all criticism of the project; critics faced dire political and personal consequences. In particular, he banned ecological criticism of the High Dam. This conflict is demonstrated in the experience of the chairman of the Hydro-Electric Power Commission at the time, and former chairman of the Nile Water Control Board. He strongly disagreed with the construction of the dam for ecological and societal justice reasons. Unable to speak out in Egypt, he was forced to deliver his papers to the Institute of Civil Engineers in London. He felt his paper was
a presentation of meticulously calculated scientific evidence important to the future of Egypt, not a political attack on Nasser. For Nasser, however, the dam was a political symbol, a symbol, among other things, of Egypt's defiance of imperialism and of Nasser's own important role in Egypt's political future. His nationalization of the Suez Canal in 1956, that supreme act of challenge to imperialism, had been undertaken, as he had declared in his nationalization speech, in order to use the canal's revenues to build the High Dam (once America had reneged on its promise to finance it). Moreover, for Nasser, the dam's very size and grandiosity was emblematic of Egypt's rebirth as a great nation, a nation venturing once more, as in ancient days, on monumental projects projects as grand as the pyramids. That was how the dam was touted in the press those days: it was new Egypt's great pyramid. For [the chairman] it was Egypt's great disaster (Ahmed, Leila. A Border Passage, Penguin Group, 1999, New York).
Sadly, this engineer and his family encountered much difficulty as a result of his opposition to the dam. Despite private support from colleagues and friends, most were publicly silent. " And so [the chairman's] forecasts about the consequences of the dam - most of which, incidentally, have proved to be correct - was a lone voice in the wilderness" (Ahmed, Leila. A Border Passage, Penguin Group, 1999, New York).
One concern about the construction of the dam was that it would expose the Nile to higher evaporation rates. Lake Nasser created a vast surface area in a particularly arid region. In addition to these concerns, the reduced water levels also hold fewer of the Nile's valuable nutrients, as the deposits from the south accumulated uselessly against the dam barrage. Historically, the Nile River would flood every year, depositing nutrient-rich silt along the entire length of the river - the one source of Egypt's agricultural fertility. By damming the river, this precious sediment is blocked and nutrients no longer reach crops down river. Farmers are forced to rely on commercial fertilizers, increasing pollution (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/globalconnections/mideast/timeline/text/qresource.html). As a direct result of this lost silt, the famed Nile Delta around Alexandria has lost much of its nutritive value.
Moreover, the loss of silt deposits has led to higher soil erosion along the river banks and reduced the area of the Nile Delta, due to sea erosion; with the Nile flowing slower, the Mediterranean Sea encroaches on the Delta's coast. Eventually, this loss will lead to increased river salinity, as the delta becomes less effective at preventing the waters of the Mediterranean from mixing with the river. This increased salinity will negatively impact rice farmers and other producers. Furthermore, since the rich nutrients of the Nile are no longer reaching the Mediterranean Sea, the fishing industry in that area has been adversely affected. Fortunately, the fish seem to be rebounding somewhat in recent years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aswan_dam).
An issue of great concern is that the river no longer flushes out the irrigation canals which harbor the snails that carry the disease bilharzia. Before, the Nile would flood and wash the snails out to the Mediterranean Sea. Without this flooding, not only have the snails' numbers grown, but a new snail community has also developed in the manmade Lake Nasser. Unfortunately, the number of people exposed to this disease has grown immensely with the completion of the dam(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aswan_dam).
In addition to agricultural and societal concerns, there were grave archaeological consequences to building the dam. The creation of Lake Nasser endangered nineteen known archaeological in Nubia (Lower Egypt) and the Sudan. As Nasser was determined to build the dam, UNESCO funded salvation projects to rescue and relocate several sites, including the two most famous examples, Abu Simbel and Philae Temple. Unfortunately, two of the nineteen sites were permanently lost to the rising waters.
However, there are also benefits; farmers do not have to plan around the annual flooding of the Nile and can plant crops year round, which significantly increased production and alleviated the increasing discrepancy between population growth and food production. This in turn reduced Egypt's reliance on hard currency to purchase basic consumerables on the world market, a major and ongoing problem for modern Egypt. Prior to the Aswan Dam, farmers had to worry that the Nile might flood early, destroying an entire year's crops or that the flood might come late, reducing growth time. The dam and control of water levels removed famine from Egypt's list of endemic problems.
Recently, a new political wrinkle has appeared. There is speculation that Israel has been encouraging other countries to charge Egypt a tax for receiving water from the Nile. If Egypt does not pay these fees, the nine countries south of Egypt - the source of the Nile - may build dams of their own. Apparently, Israel's interest lies in trying to getting the valuable resource, water, to its own borders. Israel has offered to pay said taxes for Egypt in exchange for a canal being built to extend the Nile to Israel.
In the last forty years, the dam's effects have been evolving. With every year that the Nile does not flood, Egypt experiences both the benefits and disadvantages of this vast change. Both the ability to farm year round and the electrical output of the dam have helped Egypt's economy immensely. However, the environmental impacts are still growing. What will happen when the Nile Delta is fully eroded? Will Egypt's farming system face a major upheaval and will the fishing industry eventually be destroyed by the changes in water salinity? What will happen if global warming creates greater evaporation? Will new implications be revealed with the passage of time? It remains to be seen how the Nile will ultimately handle the impacts of the High Dam of Aswan.
