B.E.L. denies problems at Chalillo
It was splashed across the front page of this week’s Reporter newspaper: predictions of big trouble at the Chalillo dam resulting from a shortage of accessible aggregate and a minor earthquake at the site that the newspaper claims caused cracks to open in the earth. But the owners of the dam, Belize Electricity Limited, this evening told News 5 that the public should read the article with more than a pinch of salt. According to B.E.L.’s C.E.O., Lynn Young, several claims made by the article are just not true and designed specifically to scare people into speaking out against the project in advance of the upcoming Privy Council hearing.
Lynn Young, C.E.O., Belize Electricity Limited
“The project is proceeding. We had quite a bit of delay because of all the court action that BACONGO has been throwing at us, there has been seven so far, seven unsuccessful. And so we got off to a late start. We started around the end of the dry season, and so its been going slower that it would have normally have gone had it started when it was supposed to start.”
Patrick Jones
“Are the rains contributing to any special difficulties?”
Lynn Young
“Not special difficulties in the sense that no more than you would expect when you are working in the rainy season. What happen is that we built a cofferdam, down in the river. We had just about enough dry because the dry season was extended luckily. We had enough time to build a cofferdam, which will enable us to do a lot of work during the rainy season. But you know working in the rainy season is slower than working during the dry season, but that is expected and we are prepared for that. We are still trying to meeting the deadline of finishing the project for next year.”
“When you’re building a dam. You have to remove what is called the over burden. That’s the soil and the weathered rock. The rock at the surface is always soft and is exposed to the sun. So all of that has to be cleared away, and then down below you’re going to find the kind of rock that you looking for to put the dam on. On one side of the river we have already cleared away to a level that we want to. On the other side it is still going on, and like I said, because of the rain and everything else that side is taking longer than if we were working in the dry season. But no, the company, there are several quarries that are needed, one for fine sand and one for rock. And they explored one first quarry and they have decided to use that for sand and there is another quarry down stream where they have identified the rock that they are going to use to build the dam.”
Patrick Jones
“So there is no shortage of rocks?”
Lynn Young
“No, no, not in that area, believe you me there is no shortage of rock up there. Actually some of the rock–one area that they found the rock was too hard. Because you have to crush the rock and the rock is very granitic, and so we got to find just the right rock that you can crush it to the size of aggregate that you want, but has the strength to support the mixture.”
Patrick Jones
“Press reports in Belize are that tremor or an earthquake recently presented some problems for you.”
Lynn Young
“Yeah, I saw that in the Reporter and the Reporter keeps printing these stories without ever checking to find out what’s the real facts. When we were clearing the over burden from the right hand side we removed some big boulders, and when the boulders were removed it releases the pressure on the dirt and stuff that is one the other side of the boulder. So when it was removed, the material started coming down, which is helpful too because we got to clear away that material, so that’s all that happened there. And I think the water, the rains that came along, made the material even more easy to slide. So I would say about ten to twenty metres of material was shifting. Its just part of the process of cleaning away the soft material to get down to the rock where we’re going to build the dam.”
Young says the project is still on schedule for completion next year within the thirty million U.S. dollar budget but fears that any more undue delays will cause some serious cost overruns. The contract for the construction of the Chalillo dam has been awarded to the China Water and Hydro Electric Company.
