On the Nile, Egypt cuts water use as
Ethiopia dams for power
There is a battle over the historic river. Under existing accords,
Egypt has veto power over development projects, but upstream
nations say they should not be bound by unfair colonial-era pacts.
12 September, 2010 | By Jeffrey Fleishman and Kate Linthicum
--------------------------------------------------------------------
$45 million to "unleash" the region's growth potential, and Ethiopian
leaders have promised that development along the tributaries feeding
the Blue Nile will raise crops for the hungry and bring jobs to a rustic
swath of Africa.
But not all stories along the Nile are hopeful ones.
Follow the great river north as it winds thousands of miles through
highlands and deserts and funnels into the canals of Egypt's Nile Delta.
Since the days of the pharaohs, the land's fate has been twinned with
the Nile, and when other visions and schemes failed, the people of the
delta believed that the river, which carried Moses through the reeds
and Cleopatra on her lavish exploits, belonged to them.
It is in the delta, on some of the most fertile land in the world, that rice
farmers have been ordered to plant fewer acres to conserve water as
Ethiopia and other nations threaten to siphon away millions of gallons
before the river reaches Egypt.
"We're victims of something much larger than ourselves," said Khaled
Abubakr, a rice farmer whose income may drop by nearly half this
year because of the new limits. "The government sends delegations to
tell us how precious every drop of Nile water is to Egypt."
There is a battle over the river that for millenniums has flowed through
the rise and fall of civilizations.
The dispute stems from a 1929 treaty brokered by the British and a
1959 agreement between Egypt and Sudan that guaranteed Egypt the
majority of the river's water.
The treaties were political, yet they underscored Egypt's reliance on
the Nile: The river's source countries, such as Ethiopia, have rainy
seasons and other water supplies, but without the river Egypt's
farmlands shrivel into desert and die.
Under the agreements, Egypt has veto power over Nile-related
development projects and is entitled to 55.5 billion cubic meters of
river water a year, or about two-thirds of the Nile's flow. But
upstream nations say they should not be bound by unfair colonial-era
pacts. In May, five of the 10 Nile basin countries — Ethiopia,
Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Kenya — signed a deal that next
year would give them larger shares of water for farming, electricity
and development.
Angry Egyptian officials said that their nation's security was at stake.
They have since toned down their threatening rhetoric and are seeking
compromise on how to balance protecting Egypt's share against new
development. The aim of the upstream countries, however, is to draft
a new legal framework to satisfy their national interests and weaken
Egypt's "historic rights" to the river.
"Egypt deals with the Nile water issue as a life-and-death matter," said
Moufid Shehab, Egypt's minister of state for legal and parliamentary
affairs. "The River Nile provides Egypt with 95% of the country's
water needs."
The 4,160-mile-long Nile is formed by the White Nile, which
originates near Lake Victoria in Uganda, and the Blue Nile, which
begins at Lake Tana in Ethiopia. They converge in Sudan and flow
north through the length of Egypt before spilling into the
Mediterranean Sea.
The river winds through poverty and turmoil and is vital for economic
growth to sustain rising populations. It is a lesson in how water can
dictate a nation's future, and threaten or preserve regional stability.
"The way forward," Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told Al
Jazeera satellite TV channel, "is not for Egypt to try and stop the
unstoppable."
Ethiopia's new Tana-Beles hydroelectric plant on the banks of Lake
Tana was built without Egypt's approval. But Meles has insisted that
his country, where blackouts are common and half the children
younger than 5 are malnourished, will build whatever it pleases along
the river and tributaries. His government has enticed investors to the
newly irrigated farmland with dirt-cheap leases.
That's what drew Addis Belay, a wealthy businessman from the
Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, who leased 1,060 acres irrigated by
the Tana-Beles project. This spring he planted his first crop of rice,
sesame seeds, soy and corn, food he hopes one day to export to
neighboring Sudan. Belay's stone-crushing factory in Addis Ababa is
also profiting from cheaper electricity generated by the new $520-
million hydroelectric plant.
Belay's sister-in-law, Liyou Feleke, said Egypt has profited from the
Nile while Ethiopia has languished in poverty. In 2008 the per capita
gross national income in Egypt was $1,800, according to the World
Bank. In Ethiopia it was just $280.
"The Egyptians have been using it for generations," she said. "The
Ethiopians, we have never used a bit. But it's time."
In recent years, Chinese contractors have threaded skeins of power
lines across the Nile Basin to carry electricity from the Tana-Beles
plant to distant cities such as Addis Ababa and to nearby Bahir Dar.
More than 80% of Ethiopians live without modern electricity,
according to the World Bank.
Zegeye Alemye, a barber in Blue Nile Village about two hours drive
from Tana-Beles, was adamant that the river be developed. "This
country should benefit from the Nile," he said.
Zegeye lives on the banks of the Abay River, the largest Blue Nile
tributary. More than 50 years ago, Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie
built one of the nation's first hydropower plants on the river, not far
from Zegeye's tiny tin-roofed shop. Another hydropower plant was
built downstream in the 1980s. Electricity transformed the village from
a few hundred people into a town of 7,000.
Zegeye gestured toward an electrical socket, where a cellphone and
his hair clippers were charging. "My life is based on this," he said.
The Nile hooks south from Lake Tana and then surges north. It
crosses borders, slips past Cairo and flows into the delta, which from
the sky resembles an open, green hand reaching through the desert
across northern Egypt toward the sea. Women and children bend with
egrets in the fields and roads are crowded with tractors pulling the
corn harvest. Most of the water that streams clear and white from
irrigation hoses and runs through the furrows began its flow in Ethiopia.
Abubakr, the rice farmer, sat in the shade between a mosque and a
storage shed stacked with bags of rice husks. The government told
delta farmers that Egypt must bolster its water reserves in case a
compromise is not negotiated between the Nile basin countries.
Egypt's rice crop, which needs more water than any other, will be cut
this year by more than 900,000 acres. Abubakr's April rice planting
shrank from seven acres to three, and he'll lose about $4,500 at the
October harvest.
"We produce good rice and it brings the highest prices at home and
on the export market," he said. "Now we have to give it up by
growing more beans and corn."
Those crops, said Abubakr's friend, Mosaad Salem, pay one-half to
one-third of a rice yield. "We've left some fields abandoned," he said.
"The cost of planting and harvesting corn is just not worth it. My
parents were farmers and my grandparents were farmers. This is all
we know how to do. We've had crises before, but not like this one."
Field hands strolled in and washed for prayers. Abubakr reached
down and picked up a rice husk, dry and cracked. It blew out of his
palm. The husks are sold to cement factories and ground into food for
livestock. Little goes to waste in the delta.
A woman brought sodas and the men stayed in the shade, discussing
tumbling prices, with no pretension that they understood the politics
and conflicts along the Nile between its headwaters and its mouth to
the sea.
jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com
kate.linthicum@latimes.com
Fleishman reported from Mansoura and Linthicum from Blue
Nile Village.
Courtesy
Ethiopia dams for power
There is a battle over the historic river. Under existing accords,
Egypt has veto power over development projects, but upstream
nations say they should not be bound by unfair colonial-era pacts.
12 September, 2010 | By Jeffrey Fleishman and Kate Linthicum
--------------------------------------------------------------------
- Reporting from
Mansoura, Egypt, and
Blue Nile — On the
sloping western shores
of Lake Tana in central
Ethiopia, where
villagers gape at new
tractors as if they were
Ferraris and power
lines pass over lean-tos
lighted by candles, a
poor nation's hopes
hum inside a new
hydroelectric plant.
- Lured by the plant's
promise of powering
villages and irrigating
350,000 acres of
farmland, intrepid
investors are venturing
across misty hills and
$45 million to "unleash" the region's growth potential, and Ethiopian
leaders have promised that development along the tributaries feeding
the Blue Nile will raise crops for the hungry and bring jobs to a rustic
swath of Africa.
But not all stories along the Nile are hopeful ones.
Follow the great river north as it winds thousands of miles through
highlands and deserts and funnels into the canals of Egypt's Nile Delta.
Since the days of the pharaohs, the land's fate has been twinned with
the Nile, and when other visions and schemes failed, the people of the
delta believed that the river, which carried Moses through the reeds
and Cleopatra on her lavish exploits, belonged to them.
It is in the delta, on some of the most fertile land in the world, that rice
farmers have been ordered to plant fewer acres to conserve water as
Ethiopia and other nations threaten to siphon away millions of gallons
before the river reaches Egypt.
"We're victims of something much larger than ourselves," said Khaled
Abubakr, a rice farmer whose income may drop by nearly half this
year because of the new limits. "The government sends delegations to
tell us how precious every drop of Nile water is to Egypt."
There is a battle over the river that for millenniums has flowed through
the rise and fall of civilizations.
The dispute stems from a 1929 treaty brokered by the British and a
1959 agreement between Egypt and Sudan that guaranteed Egypt the
majority of the river's water.
The treaties were political, yet they underscored Egypt's reliance on
the Nile: The river's source countries, such as Ethiopia, have rainy
seasons and other water supplies, but without the river Egypt's
farmlands shrivel into desert and die.
Under the agreements, Egypt has veto power over Nile-related
development projects and is entitled to 55.5 billion cubic meters of
river water a year, or about two-thirds of the Nile's flow. But
upstream nations say they should not be bound by unfair colonial-era
pacts. In May, five of the 10 Nile basin countries — Ethiopia,
Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Kenya — signed a deal that next
year would give them larger shares of water for farming, electricity
and development.
Angry Egyptian officials said that their nation's security was at stake.
They have since toned down their threatening rhetoric and are seeking
compromise on how to balance protecting Egypt's share against new
development. The aim of the upstream countries, however, is to draft
a new legal framework to satisfy their national interests and weaken
Egypt's "historic rights" to the river.
"Egypt deals with the Nile water issue as a life-and-death matter," said
Moufid Shehab, Egypt's minister of state for legal and parliamentary
affairs. "The River Nile provides Egypt with 95% of the country's
water needs."
The 4,160-mile-long Nile is formed by the White Nile, which
originates near Lake Victoria in Uganda, and the Blue Nile, which
begins at Lake Tana in Ethiopia. They converge in Sudan and flow
north through the length of Egypt before spilling into the
Mediterranean Sea.
The river winds through poverty and turmoil and is vital for economic
growth to sustain rising populations. It is a lesson in how water can
dictate a nation's future, and threaten or preserve regional stability.
"The way forward," Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi told Al
Jazeera satellite TV channel, "is not for Egypt to try and stop the
unstoppable."
Ethiopia's new Tana-Beles hydroelectric plant on the banks of Lake
Tana was built without Egypt's approval. But Meles has insisted that
his country, where blackouts are common and half the children
younger than 5 are malnourished, will build whatever it pleases along
the river and tributaries. His government has enticed investors to the
newly irrigated farmland with dirt-cheap leases.
That's what drew Addis Belay, a wealthy businessman from the
Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, who leased 1,060 acres irrigated by
the Tana-Beles project. This spring he planted his first crop of rice,
sesame seeds, soy and corn, food he hopes one day to export to
neighboring Sudan. Belay's stone-crushing factory in Addis Ababa is
also profiting from cheaper electricity generated by the new $520-
million hydroelectric plant.
Belay's sister-in-law, Liyou Feleke, said Egypt has profited from the
Nile while Ethiopia has languished in poverty. In 2008 the per capita
gross national income in Egypt was $1,800, according to the World
Bank. In Ethiopia it was just $280.
"The Egyptians have been using it for generations," she said. "The
Ethiopians, we have never used a bit. But it's time."
In recent years, Chinese contractors have threaded skeins of power
lines across the Nile Basin to carry electricity from the Tana-Beles
plant to distant cities such as Addis Ababa and to nearby Bahir Dar.
More than 80% of Ethiopians live without modern electricity,
according to the World Bank.
Zegeye Alemye, a barber in Blue Nile Village about two hours drive
from Tana-Beles, was adamant that the river be developed. "This
country should benefit from the Nile," he said.
Zegeye lives on the banks of the Abay River, the largest Blue Nile
tributary. More than 50 years ago, Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie
built one of the nation's first hydropower plants on the river, not far
from Zegeye's tiny tin-roofed shop. Another hydropower plant was
built downstream in the 1980s. Electricity transformed the village from
a few hundred people into a town of 7,000.
Zegeye gestured toward an electrical socket, where a cellphone and
his hair clippers were charging. "My life is based on this," he said.
The Nile hooks south from Lake Tana and then surges north. It
crosses borders, slips past Cairo and flows into the delta, which from
the sky resembles an open, green hand reaching through the desert
across northern Egypt toward the sea. Women and children bend with
egrets in the fields and roads are crowded with tractors pulling the
corn harvest. Most of the water that streams clear and white from
irrigation hoses and runs through the furrows began its flow in Ethiopia.
Abubakr, the rice farmer, sat in the shade between a mosque and a
storage shed stacked with bags of rice husks. The government told
delta farmers that Egypt must bolster its water reserves in case a
compromise is not negotiated between the Nile basin countries.
Egypt's rice crop, which needs more water than any other, will be cut
this year by more than 900,000 acres. Abubakr's April rice planting
shrank from seven acres to three, and he'll lose about $4,500 at the
October harvest.
"We produce good rice and it brings the highest prices at home and
on the export market," he said. "Now we have to give it up by
growing more beans and corn."
Those crops, said Abubakr's friend, Mosaad Salem, pay one-half to
one-third of a rice yield. "We've left some fields abandoned," he said.
"The cost of planting and harvesting corn is just not worth it. My
parents were farmers and my grandparents were farmers. This is all
we know how to do. We've had crises before, but not like this one."
Field hands strolled in and washed for prayers. Abubakr reached
down and picked up a rice husk, dry and cracked. It blew out of his
palm. The husks are sold to cement factories and ground into food for
livestock. Little goes to waste in the delta.
A woman brought sodas and the men stayed in the shade, discussing
tumbling prices, with no pretension that they understood the politics
and conflicts along the Nile between its headwaters and its mouth to
the sea.
jeffrey.fleishman@latimes.com
kate.linthicum@latimes.com
Fleishman reported from Mansoura and Linthicum from Blue
Nile Village.
Courtesy
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