The future of hydroelectricity from Patagonia?

• Author: Barraclough, Colin

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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...