Dried up Amaila Falls...Proposed reservoir would hold water for only 26 days of generation —Vieira

Dried up Amaila Falls…Proposed reservoir would hold water for only 26 days of generation —Vieira

Oct 15, 2013 News

Public Works Minister, Robeson Benn, has defended the use of the Amaila Falls location for the 165MW hydroelectric plant in the face of a damning image of the dried out location by saying that the plan is to build a reservoir.
The proposed reservoir would serve as a catchment area and provide an adequate supply of water during the dry season months.
This view by Benn however is being challenged.

An overhead view of the dried out Amaila Falls

Former Member of Parliament and critic of the Amaila Falls location, Anthony Vieira, in his latest public missive on the debacle, points to the writings of ‘Delgado5,’ whom he described as, “clearly a qualified engineer who is very knowledgeable about what is planned for Amaila.”
Delgadao5, earlier this year, had written to the media a document entitled “What the public should know about the Amaila project.”
That missive had suggested that the design of the Amaila hydro project, visualized a catchment of only 90 square kilometers, would have been woefully inadequate.
According to Vieira, “Other studies inform us that this catchment is too small given the expected output of Amaila, and its functioning would be seriously compromised after a routine period of only 26 days if no rainfall…Why is it that the public is only now awakening to these facts through the excellent coverage of the matter with that one photograph?”
According to Vieira, Delgado5 had pointed out that it is a mystery that the hydro project is located at Amaila when the Tumatumari location was clearly more feasible.
He tells us this: The Rivers, Kuribrong and Amaila, continue beyond the hydro site to about fifty miles until they reach the foot of the Ayanganna Mountain where they were born.
Both rivers, beyond the site, have no creeks or swamps emptying into them. They depend entirely on the natural springs at the base of Raleigh and Ayanganna mountains as sources of water in the absence of rainfall.
The reservoirs would contain 30 days of reserved water and if there is no rain in the catchment area for a little over one month, electricity could be produced for about 26 days on reserved water.

Former MP, Anthony Vieira

Should the dry weather continue beyond this time, the reservoir becomes dried out and the turbines will starve.
According to Vieira, “This makes the observations of our not so honourable Minister Benn, nonsense, when he says that when there is a catchment, this situation of no water would not be a cause for concern.”
Delgado5 had also pointed out that “the project is located only about 52 miles from where the two rivers were born at the foot of the Ayanganna Mountain, and so only nine per cent of all the water contained in the whole of the Kuribrong River would be dispensable to it.
The bulk of the water of the Kuribrong river would run off to merge with the waters of the full length of the Potaro River to form real rugged rapids at the Tumatumari, where indeed the project should have happened in the first place, he said.
According to Vieira, Delgado 5 was telling us that this hydro project should be better located at Tumatumari and not Amaila.
Another of the critiques leveled against the use of the Amaila Falls location was the amount of civil works that would be required to only supply 165MW of electricity.
The Guri Hydro Dam, in Venezuela is the third largest in the world, producing 10,500MW and was constructed with just about double the size of civil works to be done at Amaila.
“Delgado5 is saying that we will be constructing a dam which entails civil engineering works which will be nearly 50 per cent of what the Guri dam took to construct, but will only produce less than one percent of the power Guri does.”
“I am forced to ask the question again, can’t the PPP get anything right?” questions Vieira.
Delgado 5 tells us that a hydro project at Tumatumari would be far more economical to build and operate with a much larger catchment [more than 680 sq kilometres] fed by more reliable sources of water and would therefore be more effective and can be built for less than the price of Amaila. And will disturb no Amerindian settlements.