Comments on: Peru Building Crazy 12.5 Mile Tunnel Through Mountain for Irrigation & Electricity

By: Anibal rendon

Anibal rendon — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 19:11:50 +0000

After 732 days I did wrote you 21 bloggers did the same, to crush you for this naive article. Take my advice please. Research more please and put the all Pluses and minuses togeteher. Best wishes. Anibal

By: Nick Danger

Nick Danger — Sun, 06 Mar 2011 05:14:16 +0000

Novey states there is something ridiculous about how far the Peruvian government will go to manipulate nature to meet human desires. Novi is a FOOL, and himslf deserving of ridicule for making this kind of self serving statement. What planet are you from, moron?

By: Dave Trolley

Dave Trolley — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 06:18:42 +0000

You sure raised some controversy. I have been to peru and lived in the l”luxury” of Lima and Miraflores to the remote towns like Urubamba, and others. The fact that an environmental study might show some trade off, is inconsequential when you struggle to get maybe two substandard meals a day. My point is not to go there to see they are just tapping the river, go there with you family, no money in your pocket and then see how much you care about tinkering with the environment huh? To hell with your idealistic postulations, the river is just being tapped for water, and there will be 100 times more benefit than cost.

By: Dennis

Dennis — Wed, 26 May 2010 15:20:28 +0000

It is real easy to set back in the comfort of your many amenities, warm house, food, water running everywhere and you set there and want to bitch about what little if any impact a dam and water tunnel is going to have on a third world country who really needs the water to survive. No one gives a rip about what you think about this and if you took the time to look at some of the things this will provide to the poor part of Peru you should be happy these people are going to get a chance at making a living and raising their quality of life. Good for them. They could have built several Russian nuclear power facilities to pump the water over the hill. Now that would have been an impact on the environment. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth!

By: peter givargis

peter givargis — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 01:31:54 +0000

The explosives and constant use of them to cut thru the rock to build this massive tunnel along with gigantic tunneling machines have either created or sped up the procecess sorounding the earthquakes that have recently hit Chile (or at least contributed). Chile lies south of Peru and is very well known for it’s huge tremmors. this is only my opinion and i am probably way off, but the timing (tunneling all thru 2009) and the huge effort in building such a large scale tunnel must create a lot of vibration from all the dynamite and machining being done. this in turn could multiply into say smaller effects to put pressure on an already unstable area. as this is one of the most earthquake prone areas in the world as we now know since about the 16th century when the spanish arrived there and started keeping records. I have not heard of any corolation between this theory yet and hope that i am wrong. peterg

By: Michael in Vermont

Michael in Vermont — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 22:09:31 +0000

Levi – You pose a number of “problems.” Lets take them one at a time.

1) “How is this going to affect the Huancabamba River and its ecosystems?” Answer: If will help the Huacabama River and its ecosystems by alleviating the devastating flooding that occurs on that river.

2) “What about the land that is going to be converted to agriculture?” Answer: It will change that land from a desert to a productive area. Did you know that 2/3 of farm-usable land in Peru is desert?

3) “Will significant habitat be altered for the worse ecologically?” Answer: Worse than a desert?

4) “And what about the mountain?” Answer: Huh?

Conclusion #1: Don’t worry too much about the affect on the Amazon River by a decrease of 1/2 billion gallons of water annually. That amount isn’t even measurable in the Amazon – it’s about 1/2 second of output from the Amazon. Remember – the output of the Amazon River is larger that the next 7 rivers in the world combined. The second largest river in the world by output is actually the Madeira which is a tributary of the Amazon.

Conclusion #2: The people of Peru don’t give poop about what you think – and rightly so.

By: Danfd

Danfd — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 17:15:11 +0000

I agree with you, Mr. Vogue…and I appreciate your being more diplomatic in your approarch than some on this discussion board in your disagreements with the original author. I also would like to point out that, considering that these people will have to grow food for their own sustenance, or find energy to use, from somewhere…that this project actually is far better than the alternative.
Namely, deforestation and the use of fossil fuels for energy and food needs. A case that is illustrative of this is a class I took a number of years ago as an undergraduate, Environmental Problems in Metropolitan Areas. We had a guest speaker who was a biologist and told us about how he was part of a project to find and identify all the species in an area around a waterfall in Venezuala that was going to be used to create hydro-electric power. SOme in the class were concerned that those species were in danger due to the proposed project. But when you consider the steps taken to identify and collect samples of those species…but even more so, that, without the dam, the people who lived in a settlement near the waterfall would have continued to depend on a diesel generator for their power; it becomes clear that, on balance, the enviromental consequences of the dam were worth the risk because the greater risk to the environment at large was in doing nothing at all.
Now, the question for us now is, what do the Peruvians who are to gain this electtric power use as their chief energy sources, now? Human waste? Animal waste? Fossil fuels? All of these are pretty harmful to the environment. When we consider these factors, we come to the only logical conclusion, which is to understand the wisdom of the project.

By: Donald J. Voge

Donald J. Voge — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 00:21:51 +0000

I just finished watching the program “Build it Bigger” on the Science channel, regarding the Olmos Diversion Project, which described in great detail the efforts of the Peruvian government to move 500 billion gallons of water per year from the East side of the Andes mountains to the arid Western side.
The two main goals of this project are: first, and most obvious, to allow the Eastern side of Peru, which currently receives less than one inch of precipitation per year, to be cultivated, and two, to control the rampant flooding on the Eastern side.
While I agree with your concerns about altering the ecosystems of both sides, I cannot help but be impressed with the desire of the Peruvians to improve the lives of millions of their citizens by completing this project.
It brings to mind the efforts of the Chinese in the Three Rivers Gorge project, to control the flooding of the Yangtze that has plagued the Chinese for centuries, while at the same time providing electricity for a large part of the country.
It seems to be an innately human trait to alter the landscape to suit the needs of humanity, even if it negatively affects the ecosystem of the surrounding area. And, to be honest, it is hard to argue with the desire of these governments to save lives by controlling flooding, and to improve the lives of millions of people by providing cheap electricity to some of the poorest regions of the world.
By completing this project, nearly a third of a million acres of now dry, nearly empty desert can be transformed into a lush, green paradise, which will allow farmers to feed untold millions of people. Also, this will create a new ecosystem which will usher in several species of plants and animals which currently cannot survive in the harsh, dry desert in Western Peru.
Given the dangers of playing God in this matter, personally I think the rewards are worth the risk.

By: Dan

Dan — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 21:47:15 +0000

Mr. Rhodes,
I wouldn’t put too much stock in that History Channel program. I am not saying that the human race will go on in existence forever. I would argue, however, that the premise for that show is pretty ridiculous…even though I enjoy it as fiction. If the human race does not survive long enough to evolve into an entirely different species, it will not be because of anything that left buildings perfectly intact long enough for nature to take its course on those man-made structures.
If mankind does not survive long enough to evolve into a new species, it will be because of nuclear war; asteroid impact; Yellowstone erupting; a gamma ray burst; or, the most unlikely of the potential bringers of doom, a sentient extra-terrestrial invasion. In any of those events, man-made structures will be destroyed instantaneously. As for the other problems facing humanity, such as environmental catastrophies either natural or by our own hands; worldwide pandemics; etc., none have the potential to whipe out humanity in its entiretly…though they could end civilization as we know it. But there would still be people, so the premise of “Life After People” is pretty flawed. Of course, if your comments were tongue-and-cheek, I have really wasted my breath here….

By: Dan

Dan — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 00:27:53 +0000

I would watch what I say, Alberto. As a proud American from one of the “big countries” you attack in your comments, I am a strong supporter of the project. That is because, if what would happen without it is at all considered in this debate, it becomes clear that the dam and tunnel is good for the environment overall. Without it, many poor farmers would continue slash-and-burn agriculture on the other side of the mountains. This would destroy more habitats and species than the project MAY end up destroying itself. Slash-and-burn agriculture also contributes to global warming, both from the standpoint of removing trees and shrubs as “CO2 scrubbers” and release of the Carbon stored up in those trees and shrubs. And to tell the farmers that they shouldn’t have land to grow crops on…that just isn’t a realistic approach. Anyone who tries to do so will just be ignored anyway.
I AM AN AMERICAN WHO REALIZES THESE FACTS, SO MAYBE, JUST MAYBE, YOU SHOULDN’T PAINT US ALL WITH SO BROAD A BRUSH!
Likewise, you shouldn’t paint all NGOs with such a broad brush. They can’t even agree on anything, much less collude with each other on anything. For an example of this, look no further than the U.S. legislation currently before Congress called ACES, American Clean Energy and Security Act. While the Sierra Club and the Environmental Defense Fund support the legislation because they realize that we have to start somewhere…Greenpeace is opposed to it because they do not think it goes far enough. So when it comes to both the people in developed countries, and to NGOs…don’t paint us with such a broad brush….