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From Enver Hoxha to the EBRD (and back) – hydropower in Albania

Enver Hoxha, the former communist dictator in Albania, ruled in such a bizarre way that he found himself ostracised by other communist rulers. Among others he flooded the country of 3 million people with 750 000 concrete bunkers. Those bunkers were built ignoring people, nature but also military rules – as some of them were facing each other.

While the majority of bunkers is now being dismantled for scrap metal, the Albanian government, encouraged by international donors like the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the World Bank or Germany’s development bank KfW, has set its eyes on another concrete folly. Over 300 hydropower plants (HPP) are in various stages of planning or preparation seem to take the place of the bunkers in this predominantly mountainous country.

Two images of a hill with a water pipe of the Ternove hydropower project. They show how the construction is completely inadequate to avoid landslides.
A hill with a water pipe of the Ternove hydropower project. They show how the construction is completely inadequate to avoid landslides.

This week Bankwatch visited the Ternove HPP (8,4 MW), developed by Canadian Hydro Investment and Albanian Theodori company near the city of Bulqizë in central Albania. The plant, financed by the EBRD together with Societe Generale was put into operation last year. Additional canals that will harvest more water are still under construction. The project was brought to our attention because locals in several villages have been protesting for several years against the plant, fearing impacts on irrigation and thus their income and livelihood that is mostly based on farming.

The Ternove hydropower plant is taking water from the glacier lake Liqeni i Zi (Black Lake), a nationally recognised protected site, connecting it with several water streams and several other glacier lakes through tunnels and canals.

With this project the EBRD, proud of its environmental standards, looks as if it was trying to make Enver Hoxha proud, putting aside nature and people while “marching towards the bright future”. Thus it does not matter that the project lacks proper anti-erosion measures, converting the whole hill into a series of cracks that are prone to landslides and erosion. Locals fear this will likely damage the access roads they use to get to the forest and pastures.

The set of canals that is connecting the lake with other streams and lakes brings a significant amount of sediments, changing the hydrology of the glacier lake.

The fact that the company has been repeatedly fined by the Forest Inspectorate for proceeding with excavation works without the necessary permit only adds to the impression that when it comes to the implementation of its environmental policies, the EBRD has not monitored the project closely enough.

A water canal made of concrete, running along a hill.
The several kilometre long network of concrete canals will hardly boost the region’s tourist potential.

Locals fear lack of water

In several villages people protested, fearing that the hydro power plant will deprive them of irrigation water. The protests were clearly sparked by the lack of consultations about the project and its impacts. It is indeed difficult to assess the project’s impact as it not only depends on the availability of water, but also on the irrigation infrastructure.

The Strikçan village, some 22km east of Bulqizë depends on irrigation from July to September. The villagers collect 20.000 LEK (~150 EUR) every year to pay a local worker to clean the irrigation canal with pickaxe and shovel.

A water pipe lying beneath a very steep dirt hill.
The water pipes are lying under steep hills that are prone to landslides.

Recently, the village received a few hundred meters of plastic tubes from the regional administration to reduce losses in some problematic parts of the canal. But a section of the canal is crossing a landslide prone area on steep mountain slopes. The village would need a more substantial investment to enforce the canal. The village mayor estimates that such works would cost between 10 and 25.000 EUR – far more than the villagers can collect.

It is no surprise then that the villagers are frustrated when they see their government providing investors with tax exemptions or feed-in tariffs, and even worse, access to the water that they so desperately need.

The EBRD shouldn’t repeat Hoxha’s mistake: country’s massive irrational investment in concrete bunkers had back then already dealt a blow to Albania’s economy. Albania doesn’t need more concrete pumped into its land, rivers and lakes. It needs investments that address real local needs. The EBRD could learn that if only they sat down for five minutes with the bright and bold people in Bulqizë and its surrounding villages.

 

Klara Sikorova (senior researcher) and Igor Vejnovic (hydro policy officer) contributed to this blog post.

With thanks to Olsi Nika, EcoAlbania and the local activists and communities for their contribution at the field trip.

The Balkans may become the achilles heel of EU-China climate leadership

As the EU-China summit kicks off today, all eyes are watching the EU’s and China’s leaked reaction to a possible US withdrawal from the Paris Agreement. With a gaping void where US climate leadership used to be, there is both an urgent need and an opportunity for the EU and China to step in to fill the gap and ramp up their climate action.

Both the EU and China have done much to tackle carbon emissions: The EU, as well as setting emissions reductions targets, is starting to phase out the use of coal for power generation and is aiming for an almost fully decarbonised energy system by 2050. In 2013, its house bank, the European Investment Bank, virtually excluded financing for coal plants.

China has announced the closure of around 1000 coal mines and a three-year ban on opening new ones, as well as stopping the construction of over 100 new coal power plants with over120 GW capacity. Its coal use appears to have peaked in 2013, leading to drops in greenhouse gas emissions.

However neither the EU nor China – along with many other countries – has yet done enough. The latest UNEP Emissions Gap report calculates that the world is on track for at least 3 degrees celsius warming by 2100, compared to the Paris Agreement’s aim of limiting climate change to 1.5 degrees.

And one of the areas where both the EU and China need to rapidly step up their action is on the EU’s doorstep, in the Balkans, as we explain in a new briefing published today.

At least six new coal power plants – which would not be financed by Western international financial institutions – could be built in Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro and even within the EU, in Romania, financed by low-interest loans from Chinese state banks. This is part of a wider trend of Chinese financing of coal plants worldwide.

No new fossil fuel power plants can be built globally at all if the aims of the Paris Agreement are to be reached, according to research by Oxford University. This includes not only coal, which in 2014 was responsible for around 46 percent of global CO2 emissions from fuel combustion, but also gas.

But new coal plants on the EU’s doorstep are particularly alarming, as they threaten to undermine the EU’s climate and energy policy as the countries enter the EU and start to influence its policies.

The EU has a chance to influence such investments through the EU accession process and the Energy Community Treaty. Both of these require the Balkan countries to gradually comply with EU energy, environment and competition rules. These, together with low electricity wholesale prices, have contributed to squeezing out new coal plants within the EU and should be doing the same in the Balkans. But in recent years the European Commission has concentrated on other issues and has been slow to make sure environmental and state aid rules are strengthened and enforced.

The way forward depends on joint action. China can have the quickest and most decisive short-term impact by refusing to finance coal plants in the Balkans and more widely making sure that its international financing is brought into line with its impressive progress in tackling carbon emissions and air pollution on the domestic level. At the same time, the EU needs to show the Balkan countries that it is serious about their accession into the EU if they are willing to accept its policies and standards.

Together, these moves could contribute to a relatively rapid transformation of the energy system in a region with a relatively small population and high potential for wind, solar and energy savings – but only if the EU and China act quickly. Failing this, another four decades or so of coal lock-in and policy headaches for the EU beckons.

Read more

Briefing: China – souther-eastern Europe energy projects update (pdf)

Locals oppose dam that is set to endanger critical fish habitat in Bosnia-Herzegovina

We are passing through the canyon of the river Vrbas, in north-west Bosnia-Herzegovina. I am looking through a car window, mouth wide open in awe. While I look up to the rocky, edgy peaks hundreds of meters above and down to the heavenly blue river, I am wondering why anyone would want to dam this river, flood the canyon and destroy its beauty.

Then again, rather than seeing beauty, hydropower companies see wasted water resources, or in the words of a Bosnian official “euros flowing away in vain.”

Fortunately, the plans to flood the Vrbas canyon are stalled for now. But further upstream on the same river in central Bosnia, north of the towns of Donji vakuf and Bugojno, the Babino Selo dam (pdf) is promoted as one of the priority hydropower projects of Elektroprivreda BiH, the state-owned electric utility. The 100 meter-wide, ten meter high dam is being considered for a 40 million EUR loan from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).

A river flowing through thick forest.
The river Vrbas in the area of the planned dam.

Local anglers (recreational fishermen who use rod and line) are furious. “It is an atom bomb for the Vrbas”, one of the representatives of the local angling associations from Donji Vakuf and Bugojno exclaims.

The anglers are emotional, but they have a good reason – they say the existing hydropower plants at Jajce and Bočac have already cut down migratory routes for some of the important fish species. This section of Vrbas still is a critical habitat for huchen (Danube Salmon), classified as endangered by the IUCN, as well as a spawning ground for the grayling.

A formal public consultation was held in the Municipality of Donji Vakuf in April 2016. Both anglers and community representatives were present and voiced their opposition against the project. Communities were not able to learn where the planned reservoir ends and whose households would be flooded. The promoter says that the impact assessment study (pdf) is preliminary, which is true, but why haven’t the people impacted by the plans heard any updates for more than a year?

Cows walking up a path, seen from behind.
The Vrbas canyon where the dam is planned was a route of the now defunct Austro-Hungarian railway track. Back then, the steam locomotive was cooled with the help of streams running down the sides of the canyon. Their water is now being used for watering livestock and crops.

The people in the valley are friendly. But they are puzzled by the confusing information from the project promoters and consultants who were hired to survey their properties. They don’t know any details about the project or about potential livelihood restoration. This is their land, the river along which they grew up, yet it seems that they have the least influence on what it is going to happen.

Raspberry fields in the foreground, a house, river and mountains in the back.
Raspberry fields along the Vrbas river.

While we are leaving the valley via the wooden bridge that was destroyed in floods in 2010 and then rebuilt, I think of the 300 other hydropower plants planned to be built in Bosnia-Herzegovina. Most of them would have an installed capacity below 10 MW.

Is it really worth ruining one of the best preserved waterways in Europe for such minor energy gains? I hope that Bosnia-Herzegovina’s officials and international lenders such as the EBRD stop seeing money in the wild and scenic rivers of the Balkans.

With thanks to the Center for Environment, Banja Luka, and Eko-Element, Bugojno, for their valuable assistance in organising the visit.

Read more

Find more details about the project in our briefing

[Campaign update] Environmentalists take planned Montenegrin coal plant to court

Green Home, a Montenegrin environmental non-governmental organisation, on Friday submitted a complaint to the Administrative Court of Montenegro requesting the cancellation of the environmental approval for the controversial Pljevlja II coal power plant the government seeks to build.

The approval, issued by the Environmental Protection Agency on 22.2.2017, failed to include several elements stipulated by the Law on Environmental Impact Assessment, such as a justification for the decision, responses to comments provided during the public consultation, and a list of measures to address environmental damage during the construction and operation of the plant.

Among the issues which were not addressed in the decision is the fact that Pljevlja II has not been designed according to new Best Available Techniques standards recently adopted in the EU. This means the plant, if built, would pollute more than allowed.

Another issue which was left out of the decision is the plant’s CO2 emissions and their impact on Montenegro’s contribution to EU greenhouse gas emissions reductions targets once the country joins the EU.

“It’s unthinkable that an environmental approval for such a large, expensive and polluting project as a coal power plant consists of just less than three pages”, commented Diana Milev-Čavor of Green Home.

“We hope the court will acknowledge the inadequacy of this decision, and in turn revoke it, signalling the need for the whole project to be reconsidered”, she concluded.

[Campaign update] Court confirms attacks on Ukrainian villagers are related to poultry business

The Court of Appeal of the Cherkasy region in central Ukraine sided with community activist Nina Martynovska from the Ratseve village who was brutally beaten because of her opposition to the construction of poultry farm facilities by Peremoha Nova, a subsidiary of Ukrainian agribusiness giant MHP.

The court decision from April 12 thus confirmed an earlier ruling by the Chyhyryn district court that the incident was related to “a conflict […] over the chicken farm” between the victim and the attacker.

As a member of the Ratseve village council, Nina Martynovska expressed her criticism of the construction of chicken parent flock facilities – an expansion of an existing Peremoha Nova site – since the community learned of the plans. Under this project about a million chickens would be kept on the lands surrounding the village and owned by the village council. The size of the expansion and its potential impacts on soils, water and the overwhelming odour are an unacceptable prospect for many villagers.

Last summer, June 23, 2016 Nina was attacked and spent several days in hospital with a concussion. The attack was not an isolated incident. Villagers who opposed the project had to face attacks, harassment and intimidation since 2015, when the community’s opposition seemed to threaten the expansion plans.

In December 2016 the Chyhyryn district court found the attacker guilty of a criminal offense and sentenced her to a community service for a period of 150 hours. The Court also decided in favor of the victim to provide material and moral compensation and legal costs. This ruling has now been confirmed by the Cherkasy Court of Appeal.

Poisoned atmosphere

“This conflict arose because of MHP, previously we did not have any conflicts with this woman,” Nina Martynovska said in response to the most recent ruling.

The social environment where the villagers go against each other is unacceptable. Instead of openly discussing the potential social and environmental impacts of the project, the company allegedly concludes long-term leases on land for construction that will be profitable for some community members, but the impacts will be distributed and affecting everybody.

Bankwatch and its Ukrainian member group NECU communicate this situation to the international and European lenders of MHP as the company does not comply with international standards and best practices in terms of stakeholder engagement, land acquisition and community consultations.

The preliminary Environmental Impact Assessment documents that were consulted with the public late 2016 received negative attitudes of the villagers and experts, as all air emissions from the poultry houses would be floating towards residential buildings. Many questions were also raised with regards to the water use from deep artesian sources, impacts on water sources for the city of Chyhyryn, recycling manure, and more.

If the EBRD stands for democracy it should not support TAP – Italian community addresses bank’s directors

At a meeting with the directors of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Bankwatch campaigners read a statement from Italian communities opposing the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline, the last leg of the Southern Gas Corridor, a 3500 km pipeline intended to bring gas from Azerbaijan to Europe.

We reproduce the powerful statement here:

We, in the Salento region, live off agriculture, fishing and tourism, and we are oriented towards a system of environmental sustainability. Salento is a wonderful land, that has already suffered too much damages due to industrial developments, and where tumor cancer incidence is high.

The town of Melendugno and the surroundings are an oasis of happiness thanks to the historical attention to the protection of the environment.

But now they imposed the Trans Adriatic Pipeline on our land, a large infrastructure which has nothing to do with our way of life.

Despite what the government says, there have been no public consultations. In fact, we, as citizens, have been kept in the dark about everything around the TAP project.

But we have managed to get the information on our own. Over the years, we studied the entire project and, based on what we have seen and read, this project is useless and anachronistic, anywhere it is implemented.

We have repeatedly voiced our concerns and our objections to the project, but the company and the government decided to ignore it. They chose to side by the TAP consortium.

In late March, in order to allow the works at the site to begin, the government deployed battalions of police and security forces. They were tasked with defending the uprooting of our olive trees, even though the company did not have all the necessary permits. As local residents we peacefully resisted the works, but the police did not hesitate to attack common citizens, teenagers, elderly people, and even mayors and members of the European Parliament.

Ours is a movement of people, of mothers and families, determined to oppose this project and protect our livelihoods. But we believe in non-violence, and our protests are peaceful.

The violence we had faced from our own state has not scared us. Rather, it united us even more and emboldened our position.

And we know we are not alone in this struggle. Communities in Greece and Albania, who have also been sidelined by the massive political and commercial interests that the TAP project represents, continue to oppose it. And together we call on you to not to finance this project. If the EBRD stands for democracy it should not support TAP.

These olive branches could be the last ones that our centuries-old trees will ever grow, but they symbolize our peaceful resistance to this project.