The future of hydroelectricity from Patagonia?

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Aaron Sanger grimaced at the sight of the tumultuous Rio Quiroz, a 50-yard-wide river of glacial meltwater surging off Patagonia's Southern Ice Field. A pair of torrent ducks skimmed across its swirling waters, peering curiously at the steel cable and cage that hydro-electrical engineers had strung up four decades before and which now sagged perilously close to the water. A hundred yards downstream, the Qulroz emptied into an even more ferocious maelstrom: the Rio Pascua, one of the fastest-flowing rivers in Chile.

Sanger, an environmental campaigner for Berkeley, CA-based International Rivers, knew a mistake could cost his life. He climbed gingerly into the rusted steel cage, checked the harness that secured him to a tree on the far bank, and gasped as the icy water surged to his waist. On the other side of the river, fellow hikers strained on the rope, hauled the cage free of the turbulent waters, and pulled him uncertainly across.

Sanger, together with seven other environmental campaigners, had come to Chile's remote Aysen province to document the plant and animal species of the Rio Pascua watershed, one of the least explored areas of Patagonia's great waterways. Draining from glacier-carved O'Higgins Lake, the river tumbles for 38 tumultuous miles through uninhabited, trackless valleys to one of the many sea water fjords that serrate Chile's southern coastline. Just a few dozen people have reached its headwaters, locals say; far fewer have explored its entire length.

"No more than a handful of people have explored this valley--ever," enthused Sanger. "The valley is pristine and intact. There is no sign of human activity at all-no paths, no trails, no roads. Yet if the power companies get their way, the whole valley will be irreversibly damaged."

The Pascua is one of two rivers in southern Chile--the other is the more accessible Rio Baker--threatened by a vast hydroelectric project planned by corporations from Chile, Italy, Spain, and Canada. Known as HidroAysen, the $4 billion scheme involves the construction of five large dams, some higher than 330 feet, designed to produce 2,750 megawatts of electricity, equivalent to three mid-sized nuclear power stations and enough to boost Chile's power supply by twenty percent.

Under the scheme, electricity produced would be sent 1,440 miles north to supply Chile's biggest cities and, indirectly, to power its copper industry. This would require one of the world's longest clear cuts, a logged corridor more than 100 yards wide, much of it slated to slice through temperate forests of a type not found outside of Patagonia. The consortium of power companies expects construction to begin in 2010, and to inaugurate the first power plant in 2014.

Hernan Salazar, chief executive officer of HidroAysen, argues that the scheme will protect Chile's energy security far into the future. "The HidroAysen project provides a solution to Chile's energy challenges," said Salazar, in a interview. "It contributes to the country's energy security and independence and to the diversification of its energy base. It is clean, renewable, and reliable."

The scheme, proposed by Endesa Chile, a former state-owned electricity producer now owned by Italian and Spanish corporations, is the largest of several projects designed to alleviate an energy shortage in Chile, which has traditionally imported 72 percent of its energy from Argentina, most in the form of natural gas, which it converts to electricity.

Since 2004, however, Argentina has struggled to supply its own market and has slashed export volumes to its neighbor. Record high oil prices during much of the past four years, together with low rainfall caused by the La Nina climate phenomenon, have further added to Chile's woes.

Endesa began evaluating the Pascua's hydroelectric potential in the 1950s, but technological limitations and the river's sheer remoteness stymied attempts at exploitation. Now, with the country's demand for energy growing by six percent a year, power companies believe they can overcome resistance to sacrificing some of the country's most prized ecological assets in order to harness Patagonia's vast hydroelectric potential.

Yet ecologists reel off a lengthy rap sheet of the damage the HidroAysen scheme is likely to cause, ranging from flooded river valleys and fertility loss in downstream soil to habitat destruction of endemic plant and animal species, such as the huemul, an Andean deer so endangered that its population has dipped below 3,000.

Moreover, many believe that the construction of a high-capacity power line connecting Aysen to Santiago could unlock a slew of other industrial projects throughout Patagonia. "Putting that transmission line up would halve the cost of new projects throughout southern Chile," said Ian Farmer, owner of a tourism consultancy in Aysen and an opponent of the plan. "It could turn Patagonia into a vast factory for electricity."

Activists believe the transmission line could prove more damaging to Patagonia's fragile ecosystems than the reservoirs caused by the dams, and they argue that Chile's cities should be encouraged to produce their own energy from renewable sources, rather than seeking it from evermore distant regions. "The transmission line will have a bigger impact than the dams themselves," said Peter Hartmaun, Aysen-based director of Chile's National Committee for the Defense of Flora and Fauna. "Whatever route they take, it's simply not possible to avoid a great many national parks, nature reserves, and conservation areas."

"We calculate that the transmission line will have an impact on fourteen national parks and protected reserves," said Patricio Rodrigo, executive secretary of the Patagonia Defense Council, an umbrella group of 40 local and international NGOs opposed to the scheme.

Such criticisms arouse anger among HidroAysen officials, who argue that hydroelectric power is cleaner than fossil-fuelled energy sources. "We are building this project for Chilean society, both now and in the future," said HidroAysen's Salazar. "These environmentalists are damaging society and prejudicing Chile's future."

Stating that HidroAysen would comply with Chile's environmental laws, Salazar attacked what he described as myths propagated by protestors. "It bothers me that environmentalists base their protests on myths and falsehoods," he said. "To say that hydroelectricity is not in Chile's interests is simply false. Chile has no gas, no coal, and no nuclear power stations. The only practical option left is hydroelectric power, which would help safeguard the country's energy independence."

Yet critics also question how a 1,440-mile-long transmission line that passes through regions renowned for volcanic and seismic activity will enhance Chile's energy security. "You just need one tower to come down in a remote area and overnight you've lost 3,000 megawatts from the national grid." said Juan Pablo Orrego, international coordinator at Chilean environmental outfit Ecosistemas.

Locals remain divided over the project. Some fear the social impact of all-male labor forces camped near fragile village communities, arguing that crime, prostitution, and violence would flourish. Others believe the project would bring much-needed work and investment to one of Chile's least developed regions. "Most of those in favor of the dams prefer to remain silent, but plenty of my neighbors believe it will be good for the region," said Alfredo Runin, a land surveyor in Villa O'Higgins, one of the province's most inaccessible villages. "Some are only too happy to sell their small holdings to the power companies."

Nationally, a narrow majority of Chileans believes that HidroAysen should be allowed to proceed. A poll conducted last March by market research firm Ipsos Chile found that 55 percent of Chileans support the project, with 37 percent opposed and 8 percent undecided.

The scheme would have aroused less controversy in almost any other region of Chile. Aysen is one of the country's last true wildernesses, a landscape carved by ice, fire. and a sea-borne humidity that gives rise to dense stands of Valdivian forest, one of the world's most biodiverse ecosystems. Even today, human habitation is scattered. The province's 92,000 residents--less than two per square mile--wrest a tough living farming cattle and sheep in clearings hacked from the forest; others find work in ecotourism ventures, guiding the 35,000 outdoors adventurers who come each year to fish trout-rich rivers, and hike, bike, or kayak among hanging glaciers, basalt peaks, and white-water rapids.

Yet Endesa and its partners--which include two of Chile's biggest wood and pulp producers and a construction firm owned by Canadian corporations and pension funds--have been remarkably successful at sidestepping environmental concerns. Endesa already owns the rights to develop hydroelectric energy from many Chilean rivers, granted to them in the late 1980s. Advised by a US-based crisis-management PR firm, the power companies have funded a sophisticated media campaign, printing thousands of giveaway items lavishly illustrated with images of Aysen's dramatic topography--apparently without irony, despite the fact that most of the locations photographed would be flooded or visually marred by 150-foot pylons and high-tension cables if the dams were built.

"From a strictly electrical standpoint, the development of projects that take advantage of Aysen's hydroelectric potential is recommendable," said energy minister Marcelo Tokman in March. "As long as [the HidroAysen project] meets all the environmental norms, this type of electricity generation is welcome."

Other official statements also suggest that the government tacitly approves of the plan. In the same month, Chile's National Energy Commission incorporated output from HidroAysen's proposed darns in a long-term electricity price forecast.

HidroAysen needs just a single official approval to go ahead. The government's National Environmental Commission must approve an environmental impact study carried out by Endesa itself. HidroAysen submitted its study in August, but government agencies and citizens' groups have since lodged more than 3,000 official questions in response, forcing the consortium to backtrack on its original plans to begin construction as early as 2009.

At the same time, a chorus of protest against the project is growing louder. In March, the New York-based National Resources Defense Council's Robert Kermedy Jr. met President Bachelet to express his misgivings over the project. Campaigners have also targeted Endesa's owners, Acciona of Spain and Italy's Enel. and are seeking to convince their local partners, the timber-producing Matte and Angelim groups, to withdraw from the project by targeting Chile's wood exports to the United States.

"We're using the stigma of HidroAysen to raise questions about these companies' image so that they will withdraw," said Sanger. "We aim to make the scheme too controversial for anyone else to take their place."

Colin Barraclough, an award-winning British journalist and travel writer, resides in Buenos Aires and is a frequent contributor to Americas.