Environmentalists urge Iceland to scrap Alcoa plan
Date: 25-Jul-02
Country: NORWAY
Author: Alister Doyle
The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) conservation group said it wanted Iceland to declare the eastern highlands a national park, saying they would be irreversibly damaged by dams and reservoirs in the multi-billion-dollar project.
Alcoa, the world's top aluminium producer, signed a memorandum of understanding on Friday with Iceland's government to cooperate on a 295,000 tonnes per year smelter to be fed by a 500-megawatt hydro-electric power plant.
Reykjavik and Alcoa say the project would cause little pollution and have limited impact on local ecology.
But WWF said dams and a 43 sq km (16.6 sq mile) reservoir would flood regions used by reindeer and pink-footed geese in glacier-fringed highlands. The reservoir would drown parts of the spectacular Dimmugljufur canyon.
"We'll work for a national park instead," said Julian Woolford at the WWF Arctic Programme in Oslo. "We want to develop options of eco-tourism."
Woolford said there was enough hydro-and geothermal power near the capital Reykjavik in the west to fuel any new smelter without touching the wilderness. Iceland already has two aluminium smelters in the west of the North Atlantic island.
JOBS, TOURISM
Reykjavik's government, which has backing from most of parliament for the long-debated plans, reckons the scheme could mean perhaps 1,000 permanent jobs for the remote region. And officials say new roads and investment could foster tourism.
Hydropower is a non-polluting energy usually hailed by environmentalists as far better than fossil fuels or nuclear power. But in recent years many environmentalists have criticised big new hydro projects.
Alcoa has agreed to guarantee 75 percent of the costs of road and bridge construction leading to the planned hydro-electric plant in a preliminary phase.
Iceland and Alcoa hope to work out details including energy costs, taxes and construction sites by January.
"The power plant and the dams will destroy the wilderness," said Arni Finnsson of the Icelandic Nature Conservation Association, which cooperates with the WWF.
He said the region was Europe's second largest wilderness behind Svalbard, an Arctic archipelago run by Norway.
National power company Landsvirkjun says animals are likely to adapt to the damming and that no endangered plant species had been found in areas to be flooded. New reservoirs could encourage trout and other fish.
"The hydropower project will...have positive economic impact both locally and nationally," Landsvirkjun said in a statement.
Kolbrun Halldorsdottir, a member of parliament of the opposition Left Green Movement, said the government had been unwilling to discuss a national park.
"The whole project is short-sighted," she said, adding that smelters built in remote parts of Scotland and Norway had sometimes failed to stop a drift to cities.