(July 25, 2007) While insisting that the controversial Aysén Project must still go through a customary environmental evaluation process, the government nevertheless continues to publicly endorse the controversial hydroelectric venture.

The latest show of implicit government support for the project came Monday, when President Bachelet and her energy minister Marcelo Tokman joined Colbún head Bernardo Matte for the inauguration of a new 70-MW hydroelectric plant in Region VIII (ST, July 24).

Colbún, a Chilean-owned company, is one of two corporations behind the US$4 billion Aysén Project, which involves plans to build four massive hydroelectric dams in Region XI (Aysén). Together those dams – slated for the Baker and Pascua Rivers – would generate some 2,400 MW of electricity which would then be shipped to central Chile. Colbún’s partner in the venture is Spanish energy giant Endesa, Chile’s largest electricity producer.

“From the point of view of future energy requirements, those 2,400 MW are necessary, they’re not too much,” said Tokman.

The energy minister added, however, that it would make sense for Endesa and Colbún to scale the polemical project down a bit – i.e. reduce the area they originally planned to flood – in order to appease some of their critics.

“For the companies to accept the recommendations that have been made on the regional level would without a doubt improve the quality of the project, reducing its environmental impact,” he said.

Minister Tokman’s comments come just weeks after Rodrigo Iglesias, executive secretary of the National Energy Commission, also threw his weight behind the project (ST, July 3).

The Aysén Project, he said earlier this month, “could strengthen (Chile’s) energetic security and independence, due to its scale and hydrologic stability… This will reduce exposure to the volatile prices or imported fuel that Chile uses to generate electricity.”

Hydroelectric plants, upon which Chile relies for a significant part of its electricity production, have been a hot topic of late. Chile’s other principal source of electricity is natural gas, almost all of which comes from neighboring Argentina. Over the past few years, however, Argentina has limited the amount of gas it sends to Chile, creating what many in the media call an energy “crisis.”

The so-called crisis, argue companies like Colbún, is all the more reason why the government should approve construction of large-scale hydroelectric projects like the much-debated Aysén Project.

Those types of “mega-projects,” however, have attracted great criticism, especially from environmentalists, who argue that rather than back environmentally destructive hydroelectric plans, the government ought to invest in alternative, renewable energy sources.

In recent months, organizations such the Region XI-based Citizen Coalition for Aysén Life Reserve, the Santiago-based environmental group Ecosistemas, and U.S. NGOs the Sierra Club and Natural Resources Defence Council have together mounted a high-profile campaign against the Aysén Project, which they warn will be both environmentally and socially devastating for the pristine region.

“Some people believe that (building these dams) is the solution, a solution that comes at the cost of destroying Region XI’s rivers. But this is only going to solve the problem for three years. Three years from now, we’re going to have to dam two more rivers, and so on and so forth for the next 50 years. In 50 years we won’t have any more rivers to dam,” Ecosistema’s Hipolito Medina told the Patagonia Times in a recent interview.

By Benjamin Witte (benwitte@santiagotimes.cl)