Kosi's tragedy: Blunder after blunder
Himanshu Thakkar
September 01, 2008
The Kosi river basin in Bihar is facing its biggest ever flood disaster ever, and that disaster has come about completely due to the neglect of the Government of India and the government of Bihar. It is a manmade disaster which could have been avoided.
Amidst the din of 'national calamity, catastrophe and river changing course', about two million people are facing forced submergence and displacement. The governments of India and Bihar are going about the relief work as if it is a favour they are doing for the people. That favour is being doled out in a totally haphazard, unplanned, callous way.
For immediate relief it is important that those being brought out from the waterlogged areas be given cooked food for at least two days. There should be planned settlements for such people, with arrangements for shelter, fuel, fodder, medicines, hygiene etc, as they are likely to have to stay at these places for up to two months. The affected people need not be considered as victims as is the case now, but should be involved in the whole exercise. Two million people cannot be resettled by outsiders. And in the comparatively lax law and order situation of Bihar, the responsibility of the state and the Centre increases considerably in ensuring dignified relief and resettlement.
In this effort, another very important aspect seems to be totally ignored. Most (about 85 per cent) of the 1.5 lakh cusecs (cubic feet per second) of Kosi water is flowing through the breach in the embankment that started with a small, few metres-wide breach on the eastern side, 12.9 km upstream of the barrage in the afternoon of August 18. This water is flowing through three of the 15 old streams of the Kosi river, namely Sursar, Mirchaiya and Belhi, says Dinesh Kumar Mishra, possibly the most well-informed person in India on Bihar floods, from his camp at Khagaria. This water is entering an area that does not have the capacity drain so much water.
Vijay Kumar of Nagrik Pahal, Patna, says an urgent assessment is needed to identify the bottlenecks in the drainage of this water into the Kosi river at Kursela, and assess what viable steps are possible to remove those bottlenecks. For, the longer the water remains in this zone of flooding, more damaging would it be for the people and the state. Similarly, it is important to ensure that the Kosi is able to drain out its water into the Ganga. But the Ganga has been flowing above the danger mark at Sahibganj (Jharkhand) and Farakka (West Bengal), as per the Central Water Commission's (Government of India) flood forecasting site for almost two months now and is further rising. Efforts would have to be made to see how this can be reduced.
Coming to how this all started, let us look at some facts. The barrage on the Kosi river, just before it enters India in Supaul district of Bihar from the upstream Sunsari district of Nepal, was built under the 1954 Indo-Nepal Treaty. The responsibility for the proper operation and maintenance of the barrage and the 22-km long embankment on both sides of the river is the Government of India's. In the afternoon of August 18, when the embankment breached, the flow of water was about 1.44 lakh cusecs, when the embankment and the barrage are supposed to have a designed capacity of 9.5 lakh cusecs. The fact that the embankment breached at such a low flow compared to the design capacity speaks volumes about the silt accumulation on the Kosi riverbed and about the abysmal state of maintenance of the embankment. The statement from the Indian embassy in Kathmandu that Nepal did not cooperate in ensuring timely maintenance is adding insult to the grave catastrophe.
The monsoon in this part of Bihar starts in early June. And the repair and maintenance of the embankment is supposed to be completed before the onset of the monsoon. So it is clear that firstly, the maintenance be done by the required date and the Government of India could have ensured, at least for the sake of the two million people of Bihar and Nepal in the risk zone, that all measures were taken to ensure timely maintenance was done by June. That was not done.
Moreover, the pressure on the breached site on the embankment was apparent from August 5 onwards. Even at this stage, if the Government of India had used all its powers to ensure proper maintenance, the disaster could have been averted. That too was not done.
When the news of the breach broke on August 18, the governments in Delhi [Images] and Kathmandu could have woken up to see that the water flowing out of the breached portion cannot re-enter the Kosi river since the river is embanked at least 135 km downstream from the site of the breach. That water was bound to take the path of least resistance, and the possibility of it going into the old Kosi streams was the strongest. However, neither government woke up even on August 18.
Thus, precious time was wasted. If the government had woken up on August 18, then a more planned evacuation was possible and most of the lakhs of people marooned today would not be there. It is clear that there has been a series of grave and criminal blunders that have led to this disaster of huge proportions. The trouble is, even now we do not know who people are whose neglect caused this disaster, and going by our track record we may never know who they are.
Among other things, the prime minister after visiting the area declared that resources would be made available to repair the breach in the embankment. The government may even succeed in doing that and bringing the Kosi back to its pre-August 18 course. But we must remember that the bed level of Kosi all along the embanked portion of about 150 km has risen, and there is no way this embankment strategy can go on for long. The frequency of such disasters would only increase in the years to come.
The option of the proposed big reservoirs is also a false hope. According to the documents prepared right in 1937, when the big storage reservoir on the Kosi was proposed, that dam would silt up in 37 years, keeping in mind the silt carried by the river. By now the catchment is further degraded and the proposed dam would silt up in even less time. No economically viable strategy for desilting the river or the reservoir is available. So this is completely false hope.
So the perennial questions that the nay-sayers face: What is the alternative?
Firstly, the government's notion that floods equals disaster would have to be given up.
Secondly, the water that flows through the Kosi does not fall on that river. It is the accumulation effect of rainfall and glacier melt along the whole of its huge catchment. That catchment would have to be treated at micro and macro levels. Wetlands, forests, local water systems, aquifers would have to be protected, their destruction stopped, and additional capacities created where possible.
Else, we might remember what Nepal Prime Minister Prachanda said after a visit to this area, one of his first tasks as PM, that the Indo-Nepal Treaty of 1954 was a historical blunder. That phrase actually applies to the whole embankment strategy.
Lastly, those calling the Kosi as the sorrow of Bihar need to know that the people living along the Kosi do not consider it their sorrow, but as their mother and worship the river like their mother. This rather stupid phrase was possibly coined by a British tax-collector who found it difficult to collect his quota of revenue from this area. Is it not high time we stopped using the colonial phrase for a river?
Monday, September 8, 2008
Trying to tame Kosi
'Trying to tame Kosi recipe for more disaster'
Indo Asian News Service
September 07, 2008 02:46:03
New Delhi, September 7: The Kosi has this year lived up to its name of Bihar's 'river of sorrow' by changing its course and rendering nearly three million people homeless, but now trying to jacket it with embankments and barrages as engineers are planning to do may cause further devastation, says noted water expert Anupam Mishra.
Enclosing the silt-laden river within an embankment that will force it to run in east-west course against the region's topography is a recipe for future disaster, Mishra said.
The author of several books on water systems and traditional water harvesting methods explained, "The seven currents of the Kosi cannot be tamed. The topography of the flood plains is elevated at the north along the Himalayas and slightly lifted in the east owing to silt deposition in flood plains."
"The river is about 20,000 years old. In the past 200 years, equivalent to a day in our lives, the river has shifted about 120 km because its original flow is eastward, to merge with the Ganges."
According to Mishra, the barrage on the India-Nepal border built to control had failed and had only 'hastened its changing course. The Kosi is a meandering river. The natural tendency of the river disapproves the steady-water equilibrium engineering of authorities'.
"Embankments may work on rivers that are stable and carry moderate amounts of silt. Holding a river like Saptakosi, as it is also called, only adds to its defiant nature."
In his Hindi book Saaf Maathe ka Samaj (Society with a Clear Mind) Mishra has analysed the behaviour of rivers in northern Bihar, their impact on society, floods and their management.
Excerpts from his 2006 book read: 'Flood are no guests here (in northern Bihar). They never come by surprise. Their occurrence is set in time. There may be a delay of a few days in its arrival. But come they will'.
'Yet, on its arrival we consider it sudden. Perhaps in earlier days, society was more capable of flood management, independent of useless administration, so they never seemed rattled by flooding. The lack of preparations before the flood magnifies its destructive impact'.
Mishra said, "People and tribals in the region own boats as we do cars. If instead of spending millions on helicopters and fuel, which anyway turn out to be inadequate for flood relief, these locals and their boats are employed and engaged by the government prior to and during the floods, flood management will prove to be more efficient and cost effective."
"The meandering waters, big or small, are best known by the locals. With their collaboration, the impact can be less destructive even in situations like the flooding of a major river like Kosi."
Mishra, a Gandhian and environmental activist, feels that there is a need for authorities and people to understand flood management techniques adopted by local people in the past and assess how to use them today.
"Earlier this region had thousands of natural and man-made depressions, which ran for 5 to 10 kilometres. While these became lakes during monsoons and controlled flooding waters, during dry weathers, these were used as water holes. The government and authorities, in a haste to tap the agricultural potential of the soil, filled the depressions and encouraged cultivation there."
"Now with no depressions left, the waters run helter-skelter wreaking havoc on the lives of people that worship it. Ironically all that agriculture is of no use any more. The authorities have to choose what is important. Is agriculture of any use at the expense of the lives of millions of people?"
Speaking about the present flood relief efforts in Bihar, he said that authorities have to surrender their political agenda and consider the victims' plight rationally.
"The railway minister has announced that 1,00,000 bottles of 'Rail Jal' (water packaged for Indian Railways) will be distributed among over two million flood victims. Is this sustainable? How many bottles can reach these victims who are affected by the flood?"
"Instead one can consider distribution of filtering devices and tanks to filter and decant flood waters rendering it relatively drinkable."
"Society, as it has proven in the past, will rehabilitate itself in due course. But it is not society that has created barrages and embankments. Authorities have created them, so it is their duty to set an agenda on how to control future floods and live with them - to think, discuss, deliberate with engineers, locals, and representatives from Nepal and Bangladesh to plan in advance, and execute in time."
Indo Asian News Service
September 07, 2008 02:46:03
New Delhi, September 7: The Kosi has this year lived up to its name of Bihar's 'river of sorrow' by changing its course and rendering nearly three million people homeless, but now trying to jacket it with embankments and barrages as engineers are planning to do may cause further devastation, says noted water expert Anupam Mishra.
Enclosing the silt-laden river within an embankment that will force it to run in east-west course against the region's topography is a recipe for future disaster, Mishra said.
The author of several books on water systems and traditional water harvesting methods explained, "The seven currents of the Kosi cannot be tamed. The topography of the flood plains is elevated at the north along the Himalayas and slightly lifted in the east owing to silt deposition in flood plains."
"The river is about 20,000 years old. In the past 200 years, equivalent to a day in our lives, the river has shifted about 120 km because its original flow is eastward, to merge with the Ganges."
According to Mishra, the barrage on the India-Nepal border built to control had failed and had only 'hastened its changing course. The Kosi is a meandering river. The natural tendency of the river disapproves the steady-water equilibrium engineering of authorities'.
"Embankments may work on rivers that are stable and carry moderate amounts of silt. Holding a river like Saptakosi, as it is also called, only adds to its defiant nature."
In his Hindi book Saaf Maathe ka Samaj (Society with a Clear Mind) Mishra has analysed the behaviour of rivers in northern Bihar, their impact on society, floods and their management.
Excerpts from his 2006 book read: 'Flood are no guests here (in northern Bihar). They never come by surprise. Their occurrence is set in time. There may be a delay of a few days in its arrival. But come they will'.
'Yet, on its arrival we consider it sudden. Perhaps in earlier days, society was more capable of flood management, independent of useless administration, so they never seemed rattled by flooding. The lack of preparations before the flood magnifies its destructive impact'.
Mishra said, "People and tribals in the region own boats as we do cars. If instead of spending millions on helicopters and fuel, which anyway turn out to be inadequate for flood relief, these locals and their boats are employed and engaged by the government prior to and during the floods, flood management will prove to be more efficient and cost effective."
"The meandering waters, big or small, are best known by the locals. With their collaboration, the impact can be less destructive even in situations like the flooding of a major river like Kosi."
Mishra, a Gandhian and environmental activist, feels that there is a need for authorities and people to understand flood management techniques adopted by local people in the past and assess how to use them today.
"Earlier this region had thousands of natural and man-made depressions, which ran for 5 to 10 kilometres. While these became lakes during monsoons and controlled flooding waters, during dry weathers, these were used as water holes. The government and authorities, in a haste to tap the agricultural potential of the soil, filled the depressions and encouraged cultivation there."
"Now with no depressions left, the waters run helter-skelter wreaking havoc on the lives of people that worship it. Ironically all that agriculture is of no use any more. The authorities have to choose what is important. Is agriculture of any use at the expense of the lives of millions of people?"
Speaking about the present flood relief efforts in Bihar, he said that authorities have to surrender their political agenda and consider the victims' plight rationally.
"The railway minister has announced that 1,00,000 bottles of 'Rail Jal' (water packaged for Indian Railways) will be distributed among over two million flood victims. Is this sustainable? How many bottles can reach these victims who are affected by the flood?"
"Instead one can consider distribution of filtering devices and tanks to filter and decant flood waters rendering it relatively drinkable."
"Society, as it has proven in the past, will rehabilitate itself in due course. But it is not society that has created barrages and embankments. Authorities have created them, so it is their duty to set an agenda on how to control future floods and live with them - to think, discuss, deliberate with engineers, locals, and representatives from Nepal and Bangladesh to plan in advance, and execute in time."
Kosi River---not a natural disaster
Editorial: Not a 'natural' disaster
Business Standard / New Delhi August 28, 2008, 5:58 IST
Floods, often deemed mistakenly as natural disasters, are the result mostly of human misadventure in the river catchments, and the neglect of water systems. The catastrophe caused by the turbulent Kosi river in north Bihar, after breaching its embankment at Kusaha, near the Bhimnagar barrage in Nepal, is a typical example. The breach in its eastern bund has caused the river to change its course and gush eastwards as a torrent to drown unsuspecting towns and villages in a vast stretch, affecting over 2 million people and leading to heavy loss of life and property. The consequent peril, unparalleled in scale and having more ominous portents in store, is the result of heavy silting that has been putting pressure on the river’s spurs and bunds since 1985. Shockingly, instead of taking remedial measures in the catchment area to curb silting, officials have been undertaking bund strengthening work year after year. Now that the inevitable has happened, engineers find it difficult to plug the opening that has already widened to nearly 3 km and is growing by over 200 metres a day. If the widening breach reaches the Bhimnagar barrage, just 12 km away, the huge, thickly inhabited expanse around the districts of Supaul, Saharsa, Araria, Madhepura, Katihar and Purnea will be submerged. What heightens this danger is the frail state of the Bhimnagar barrage itself, which crossed its estimated life span of 30 years some 22 years ago as it was built in Nepalese territory by India in 1956.
It is not just the scale of the Kosi disaster that is exceptional; for the new course that the mighty Kosi is charting is unusual. Unlike the past, when the river invariably shifted its stream westwards, this time it is moving eastwards, inundating otherwise flood-safe areas, and heading with enormous force towards the Ganga, about 100 km away.
It is unfortunate that the fluid geo-political situation in the Nepal-Bihar border belt should come in the way of carrying out repairs to the damaged embankment, which have to be undertaken by India in Nepalese territory. That the Centre should take so long to raise the issue of local resistance to repair work with the Nepalese authorities after the occurrence of the breach on August 18 is all the more regrettable.
The Kosi catastrophe should be taken as a warning to be prepared to face similar situations in other river basins. The unabated deposition of silt is raising the beds of almost all Indian rivers, curtailing their water-holding capacity and enhancing the danger of flooding the adjoining areas even in the event of a marginal increase in the water inflow. Besides, the pressure on land due to a growing population is forcing human habitations to move towards the flood plains of rivers and even on to the riverbeds, heightening the scope for flood damage. Considering the frequent visitations of river disasters in different parts of the country, especially during the monsoon season, a long-term policy for the conservation of vegetative cover and re-greening of denudated catchments is essential. Such a measure alone can slow down the rates of both siltation and water inflows into the rivers. Otherwise, the recurrence of Kosi-like catastrophes will be difficult to avert.
Business Standard / New Delhi August 28, 2008, 5:58 IST
Floods, often deemed mistakenly as natural disasters, are the result mostly of human misadventure in the river catchments, and the neglect of water systems. The catastrophe caused by the turbulent Kosi river in north Bihar, after breaching its embankment at Kusaha, near the Bhimnagar barrage in Nepal, is a typical example. The breach in its eastern bund has caused the river to change its course and gush eastwards as a torrent to drown unsuspecting towns and villages in a vast stretch, affecting over 2 million people and leading to heavy loss of life and property. The consequent peril, unparalleled in scale and having more ominous portents in store, is the result of heavy silting that has been putting pressure on the river’s spurs and bunds since 1985. Shockingly, instead of taking remedial measures in the catchment area to curb silting, officials have been undertaking bund strengthening work year after year. Now that the inevitable has happened, engineers find it difficult to plug the opening that has already widened to nearly 3 km and is growing by over 200 metres a day. If the widening breach reaches the Bhimnagar barrage, just 12 km away, the huge, thickly inhabited expanse around the districts of Supaul, Saharsa, Araria, Madhepura, Katihar and Purnea will be submerged. What heightens this danger is the frail state of the Bhimnagar barrage itself, which crossed its estimated life span of 30 years some 22 years ago as it was built in Nepalese territory by India in 1956.
It is not just the scale of the Kosi disaster that is exceptional; for the new course that the mighty Kosi is charting is unusual. Unlike the past, when the river invariably shifted its stream westwards, this time it is moving eastwards, inundating otherwise flood-safe areas, and heading with enormous force towards the Ganga, about 100 km away.
It is unfortunate that the fluid geo-political situation in the Nepal-Bihar border belt should come in the way of carrying out repairs to the damaged embankment, which have to be undertaken by India in Nepalese territory. That the Centre should take so long to raise the issue of local resistance to repair work with the Nepalese authorities after the occurrence of the breach on August 18 is all the more regrettable.
The Kosi catastrophe should be taken as a warning to be prepared to face similar situations in other river basins. The unabated deposition of silt is raising the beds of almost all Indian rivers, curtailing their water-holding capacity and enhancing the danger of flooding the adjoining areas even in the event of a marginal increase in the water inflow. Besides, the pressure on land due to a growing population is forcing human habitations to move towards the flood plains of rivers and even on to the riverbeds, heightening the scope for flood damage. Considering the frequent visitations of river disasters in different parts of the country, especially during the monsoon season, a long-term policy for the conservation of vegetative cover and re-greening of denudated catchments is essential. Such a measure alone can slow down the rates of both siltation and water inflows into the rivers. Otherwise, the recurrence of Kosi-like catastrophes will be difficult to avert.
HOW SOME EXPERTS HAVE MISLED THE GOVERNMENT ON SAFETY OF TEHRI DAM
HOW SOME EXPERTS HAVE MISLED THE GOVERNMENT ON SAFETY OF TEHRI DAM:
For instance the National Standing Committee for seismic Design Parameters (NCSDP) of the Central Water Commission has recommended a seismic coefficient of 0.15 for the design of the Tehri dam. This is a very low value which makes the design unsafe. Infact Mr.B.B.L.Goyal, Chief Engineer of Tehri dam in a Technical paper(Technical session IX, CBIP, July, 1989) stated that Watana dam in Alaska and Karun dam in Iran in a similar tectonic setting were designed for seismic co-efficients of 0.5g on circum-pacific earthquake belt while Tehri dam was designed for only 0.15g. Infact Hensha dam, 120ft. high, in California was designed for a seismic co-efficients of 0.3g. Japanese codes specify the coefficient for embankment dams as 0.3g. Hence Tehri dam was under-designed because NCSDP experts furnished wrong design criteria, perhaps because several members were experts in collateral fields other than seismology and environmental safety.
Dr.V.K.Gaur, Director of NGRI an International expert in seismology suggested that the peak ground acceleration at Tehri may be taken as 1.0g but the experts of the Department of Earthquake Engineering of Roorkee University who were predominantly Civil Engineers insisted that Tehri will experience an earthquake of magnitude 7 on Richter scale and hence PGA for design purposes may be taken as 0.25g. This clearly shows that Roorkee University experts gave wrong technical data for design of the Tehri dam.
The Roorkee experts have gone out of the way to deride the estimate on seismicity of Tehri made by Dr.V..K.Gaur on 16-10-1986 in a technical meeting held under the chairmanship of M.A.Chitale, Chairman, CWC to study the feasibility of construction of Tehri dam for seismic considerations. Even during this meeting 25 experts representing Central Water Commission(CWC), Geological Survey of India(GSI), National Geological Research Institute(NGRI) and Roorkee University etc., came to an erroneous conclusion that Tehri will not experience an Earthquake of more than 7.0 to 7.2 magnitude and that the peak ground acceleration (PGA) of 0.25g recommended by the Roorkee experts will be adequate for the design of Tehri dam to ensure its safety. In the light of this unscientific affirmation on seismicity and PGA values recommended for the design of Tehri dam, the participants cannot be considered as relevant experts and the organisations represented by these experts become suspect.
When the Tehri project authorities presented Environmental Action Plans before the 13-member environmental expert committee of the Union Ministry of Environment for Environmental clearance in November 1989, the project authorities stated that the dam was designed by Roorkee experts for an Earthquake of magnitude 7 and a PGA of 0.5g and an effective PGA of 0.25g deduced by using Mc.Guire equation based on distance-magnitude relation. After consulting several experts and making an indepth study and visit to Tehri in January 1990, the committee concluded that seismicity at Tehri will 8.5 magnitude on the Richter scale as against magnitude 7 assumed by Roorkee experts and that in the event of dam failure many holy places like Rishikesh and Hardwar will be washed away and hence rejected the Tehri project.
Since Bhumbla committee report was not liked by the vested interests behind the project, it was rejected by the secretaries to the Union Government for Power, Water Resources, Mines and Environment who appointed another High Level committee of experts headed by Dhondial with representatives from Roorkee University, CWC, NGRI and Dr.V.K.Gaur, an eminent seismologist in April 1990 this committee accepted that seismicity of Tehri must be placed at 8.5 magnitude as recommended by Bhumbla committee in February 1990. It means that the design parameters recommended by all the previous expert committees are incorrect and the size and slopes of the dam designed on such incorrect data are bound to cause the collapse of the dam soon due to one reason or the other.
Although Dhondial committee revised seismicity of Tehri from 7 to 8.5 magnitude that involved 300 fold increase in the energy release of the earthquake, they failed to make a corresponding revision in the design of the dam. Except for Dr.V.K.Gaur, all the members of Dhondial committee belong to institutions which fed unscientific and incorrect design data for Tehri dam and perhaps it became a prestige issue for them to retain the previous size and slopes of the dam and for this purpose they discarded the Mc.Guire Equation used upto February 1990 and changed to Brune’s formulation for retaining by manipulations the PGA at 0.5g and effective PGA at 0.25g. It means the Dhondial committee wants people to believe that the impact of shooting against wall structure remains the same whether you use a police constable’s gun or a Bofors gun. Brune himself stated that Dhondial committee misused his formulation by using an under-estimated quality factor Q of 50 instead of 500 for Tehri site and consequently the PGA must be revised from 0.5g to over 1.0g. But the Dhondial committee refused to heed such scientific advice and hence Dr.V.K.Gaur, one of the committee members, submitted a note of dissent. The latest scientific work proves that Dhondial committee was wrong in choosing a low value for Q at Tehri.
Dhondial committee report containing the conflicting views of civil engineers and seismolgists regarding PGA and effective PGA values was considered by a committee of secretaries to the Government on 10-8-1990 and it was decided to refer the matter “to an independent seismological expert of international repute” for a final decision. Unfortunately the Department of Mines committed a grave blunder in referring this issue to Prof.Jai Krishna who was a civil Engineer with specialisation in structural, (earthquake engineering) and also perhaps a consultant to the project for a number of years. He was neither an independent expert nor a seismologist of international repute as he had a vested interest in the project. Unfortunately the Government placed undue reliance on his unscientific views.
Dr.Jai Krishna considered the Dhondial committee report and accepted the revised seismicity of Tehri as 8.5 magnitude. He estimated PGA at Tehri as 0.446g on the basis of Brune formulation and placed effective PGA at 0.25g. Based on the actual records compiled by Schnabel and Seed, Jai Krishna prepared a graph to place an upper bound on PGA for Earthquakes beyond 6.7 magnitude. Further he assumed that effective PGA will be about half of actually recorded PGA. These unscientific assumptions were made for manipulating the design parameters for Tehri dam. Infact the US experts used PGA values from 0.55g to 0.89g for design of about 15 dams in USA, Casitas Embankment dam of California, 335ft, high was designed to withstand an earthquake of magnitude 6.5 and PGA of 0.55g, Auburn dam of california, 233m high was designed to withstand an earthquake of magnitude 6.5 and PGA of 0.64g on the basis of two formulations of expert groups, one by Campbell and Bozorgina and the other by Abrahamson and Silva. Actual PGA records from Northridge, Tabas, Gazli, Kobe and Taiwan Earthquakes indicate PGA values of more than 0.8g and hence prove that the contention of Jai Krishna on the upperbound for PGA is very wrong. While the US experts discarded the concept of an upper bound PGA for ground motions irrespective of the magnitude of the earthquake above 6.7 Dr.Jai Krishna stuck to this discarded concept as it serves his vested interests. Thus Dhondial Expert committee report and Jai Krishna’s report on design parameters for Tehri dam are completely misleading and detrimental to national interests.
RUSSIAN EXPERTS HAVE PREDICTED COLLAPSE OF THE TEHRI DAM:
Several Russian experts stated that Tehri dam as designed is bound to collapse for several reasons.
---Mr.Fink, Soviet expert stated in November 1986 that Tehri dam has been designed to withstand an earthquake of intensity 8 on the MSK or MM scale and raised it to 9 intensity which is equivalent to about 7 magnitude on the Richter scale. But the Government of India blindly believed the value of 7 magnitude fixed by all the expert committees constituted before January 1990 but revised seismicity to magnitude 8.5 recommended by the Bhumbla committee in February 1990. It means the seismicity of Tehri has been increased to intensity 11 to 12 on MSK or MM scale and according to Soviet norms the sub-structure foundations will fail and consequently the dam will collapse.
---Mr.Davidov stated in January 1990 that Tehri dam was designed to withstand an intensity of 9 on the MSK or MM scale and it means as already stated above the dam fails due to an earthquake magnitude of 8.5 as accepted by the government.(Times of India, dt.8-2-1990)
---Mr.Michalov another Soviet expert at Tehri dam stated in October 1991 that Tehri dam has been designed to withstand intensity 9 on MSK or MM scale and that 10 points intensity would not occur at Tehri. It again implies that the dam has sated above will collapse due to an event of magnitude 8.5, equivalent to intensity 12 on MM scale at Tehri. (Hindustan Times, dt.31-10-1991)
---The Soviet experts who prepared the report entitled Tehri dam project on the Bhagirathi river in 1989 under contract No:53032/67652, Appendix-9 stated under Table No.2.3 and Table No.2.4 that for the third version pertaining to PGA (horizontal) of 0.64g and PGA (Vertical) of 1.28g the dam will fail. Infact Fig.2.19 of the report clearly shows the sketch of the dam failures pattern for version No.3. Hence the Soviet experts also predicted the impending collapse of the dam since 1986.
---It is shocking to read the results of the stability analysis for Tehri dam applying accelerogram of Gazli earthquake by the Hydro Project Institute, Moscow in 1992. Surprisingly the Soviet consultants certified “The Tehri dam is seismically stable under the loading of the Gazli earthquake accelerogram for a duration of 12 seconds and this report is evidently wrong, if we consider the earlier Soviet report of 1989 on the subject.”
---GAUR COMMITTEE OF EXPERTS VIRTUALLY REJECT TEHRI DAM:
--Out of 5 members of the Group of Experts appointed to study seismic safety of Tehri in 1996 by the Government of India 4 experts virtually rejected the project while one expert who was Vice –Chancellor of Roorkee University which was given project consultancy supported the dam by violating the stipulation of the conditional Environmental clearance given by the Union Government and also the safety norms propounded by International Committee on Large Dams. The Group of Experts (Gaur committee of 1996)considered the safety aspects of the project. They felt that for determining seismic safety of the dam it should be ensured as per International Standards (ICOLD-57, Bulletin 46) that
(a) the dam does not suffer significant damage, when subjected to OBE; and
(b) damage to the dam is limited and no catastrophic failure occurs leading to uncontrolled release of water when subjected to MCE.
The group further emphasized that the seismic risks of dam for earthquakes has two components
(i) structural systems and components inclusive of the dam body and
(ii) Socio-economic components
But unfortunately the group was allowed to make only a half hearted exercise on the seismic aspects of Tehri dam because it has made a casual study of the first component and the equally important socio-economic component was not studied.
The Group made recommendation which is like the judgement pronounced in the Shakespearian drama “Merchant of Venice” where Shylock will be asked to take his pound of flesh from the body of the accused without a drop of blood. Hence the Expert Group cannot be considered to have made a comprehensive and unconditional recommendation in favour of continuing the Tehri dam because 4 out of the 5 experts have expressed a different opinion citing the Russian studies which categorically said that the Tehri dam will collapse for the earthquake impact with PGA equal to ax= 0.64g and ah=1.28g. The extract of the opinion of the 4 experts is as follows.
“Based on a review of the reports made available to the Group and further studies conducted by DEQ-UOR on the behaviour of the idealised two dimensional model of the dam to the ground acceleration corresponding MCE, the Group came to the conclusion that the present design of the dam is expected to be structurally safe to withstand the MCE during the economic performance life of the dam-reservoir system.
However, a number of crucial questions could not be settled, notably the slope stability on account of the difficulties reported in Annexure-13, and the response of the dam to MCE in the longitudinal direction. Keeping in view, therefore, of the sensitivity of non-linear behaviour to possible variations in the values of seismic parameters such as PGA, duration, frequency content and material properties, still larger displacements cannot be ruled out. Infact as per the Soviet Report (Tehri Dam Project on the Bhagirathi river, India, Contract No.53032/67652, 9,G.P.73-74) to which attention was drawn by one member of the Group, the idealised section of a 200m high dam fails for the earthquake impact with PGA equal to az =0.64g; ah=1.28g. Whereas there are differences in the sections analysed in the above report and the current design of the Tehri dam attention is drawn to the fact that for some fortuitous combination of inputs combined with particular reservoir-dam conditions the performance of the dam to hold water at a future date may get affected.
It is therefore, further recommended that as a matter of abundant caution, the following work be carried out.
(i) 3-D non-linear analysis of the dam to evaluate its performance against the MCE.
(ii) A simulated dam break analysis to ensure that in the unlikely event of an uncontrolled release of water, the consequences are minimum.”
NCSDP COMMITTEE OF CENTRAL WATER COMMISSION MISUNDERSTOOD THE IMPLICATION OF THE SAFETY ASPECTS PRESENTED BY GAUR GROUP OF EXPERTS :
Unfortunately when the Gaur group of experts committee report was sent to the Central Water Commission it referred this reports to the National Standing Committee on seismic design parameters to review the report with respect to: a.) the parameters proposed for seismic safety of the Tehri dam and b) the need or otherwise to carrying out a 3-dimensional non-linear analysis of the dam against MCE. Perhaps the NCSDP was composed of general experts in civil Engineering who could influence the views of other specialists in different fields of science and hence they come to the wrong conclusions on 24-11-1998. They concluded that firstly there is no need to get the 3-dimensional non-linear analysis for Tehri dam and secondly the dam burst scenario and the disaster management for the project even though this condition was stipulated by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests in its conditional clearance. If there was any genuine expert in Civil Engineering he would have certainly argued that for dams in narrow canyons with length to height ratio being lessthan3, the response of the structures is 3-dimensional. Mejia and Seed made a comparative study of 2-dimensional and 3 dimensional dynamic analysis of the Oroville dam with length to height ratio of 7 and another hypothetical dam with length to height ratio of 2. Oroville dam was considered for earthquake parameters of magnitude 6.5 peak acceleration of 0.6g and frequency of 2.5 hertz while the second dam was considered for a magnitude of 5.7 peak acceleration 0.9g and frequency of 6.5 hertz. The effects of Canyon geometry on the dynamic response of the dam is stiffening of the system, causing higher natural frequencies of vibration for dam in narrow valleys. The study confirmed that the fundamental natural frequencies of the 3-dimensional dam model (L/H=2) were about 50% higher than those computed for the plane-strain analysis for the said earthquakes. For the Oroville dam (L/H=7). The 3-dimensional natural frequencies were 12% and 23% higher than those for the 2-dimensional model. Hence for dams with steeper canyons than the Oroville dam, it is necessary to perform 3-dimensional analysis to obtain satisfactory results for design purposes. Since Tehri dam has a steeper (L/H=2) canyons than the Oroville dam (L/H=7) 3 dimensional analysis must be made to obtain satisfactory results for design purposes. (Page 225 and 226 of Embankment dams by H.D. Sharma, Oxford and IBH, 1991). Since Dr.Nigam is reported to have opposed for 3-D Non-linear Analysis of Tehri dam and for the dambreak analysis and such views are against the standard international norms for dam safety his views must be rejected consequently the report of the group of experts must be considered as a rejection of the Tehri project.
Although the Union Ministry of Environment made it a condition for the Tehri Hydro Development Corporation to prepare a disaster management plan in consultation with the potential victims of the area it was not accordingly prepared. Hence the members of the NCSDP who refused to accept the recommendations of the Gaur group of Experts report cannot be treated as good experts as they have violated the principles of professional ethics and environmental regulations of the Union Government. NCSDP rejection of the report of Gaur committee is untenable.
GOVERNMENT SECRETARIES MISLEAD PRIME MINISTER AND THE NATION: It is much more unfortunate that most of the ecologically illiterate Secretaries to the Government who are not experts in seismology or Civil Engineering must have without raising any relevant scientific or technical questions blindly accepted the report of the so called expert committee “NCSDP” committee of the Central Water Commission. Having taken a wrong decision to accept NCSDP report, naturally the committee of senior secretaries to the Government must have misled the Prime Minister to take a blatantly wrong decision to continue work on the Tehri project which is most detrimental to public interests as already stated by the former Prime Minister Mrs.Indira Gandhi in 1979-80 itself.
Hence Tehri dam becomes a handy bomb for the terrorists to destroy North India and cause economic disaster for the whole nation. Due to the devastating Uttarakashi earthquake of October 1992 ND Jayal and Prof.Sekhar Singh filed public interest litigation case in the Supreme Court to consider the various issues like seismicity, dam safety, environment and rehabilitation issues of the Tehri dam. The Supreme Court bench comprising the judges, Justice Rajendra Babu, Justice Dharmadhikari and Justice Mathur took up the final hearing on the issues of Tehri Project from 21-2-2003. During the course of arguments the senior counsel Ms.Indira Jisingh strongly argued that the issue of safety of dam is related with the lives of lakhs of people living in the areas below the dam in the Gangetic belt. It was argued that the stipulations under the conditional environmental clearance given to the project by the Union Ministry of Environment on 19-7-1990 have not been satisfied by the Government. Before the last day of hearing on 25-2-2003 although the advocates for the petitioners requested to ensure compliance with the conditions stipulated in the environmental clearance the Government advocates claimed that they are taking care of the safety aspects of the Tehri dam and that there is no need for 3-dimensional study of the dam and that there is no need of dam break analysis and that there is no need of disaster management plan and that all these are only theoretical exercises. Ms.Indira Jisingh filed before the court a list of the dams in the world where 3-dimensional studies of the dams and dam break analysis for the dams were done as per the statutory requirements and the guidelines on dam safety. But the Government repeatedly told the court that these are only mental or theoretical exercises and that these studies are never made. Thus the Supreme Court has been presented with wrong information and that to by violating the conditions stipulated in the schedule for environmental clearance proforma under the Environmental Protection Act and the rules published by the Union Government in 1994. As per the BBC News report dated 2-9-2003 the Supreme Court of India dismissed the writ petition challenging the Tehri project on the grounds that there was no evidence that the construction was not following environmental guidelines and the verdict was passed by 3 judges who voted two- to- one against the petitioners.
Although several very prominet seismologists from foreign countries and also from India have presented high level of scientific evidence on the high seismic potential of the Tehri area making the site very unsafe for this massive project and dam break analysis reports were also submitted to the Union Ministry of Environment and the Bhumbla expert committee rejected the project on several grounds yet the non-seismological civil engineers and the non-environmental bureaucrats ultimately managed to pessurise the Prime Minister at the behest of the undue pressure from political and business lobby to clear the project and present insuffificent and unscientific evidence before the courts with the result that the right to life of millions of people living downstream of the dam could not be safeguarded as envisaged by the Indian consitution. If Mrs. Indira Gandhi were to be alive she would have fought tooth and nail against this most hazardous project in the world as she had lot of concern for public interest as opposed to the vested interests represented by the business interests supported by the civil engineers, the bureaucrats and the politicians. But in the long run nature will ultimately take vengeance against the human acts of fally against nature and hence intellectuals of India including the patriotic members of the fourth estate to investigate into the matterand get the dam safety reviewed as per the annual reviews of such unsafe dams being conducted in advanced countries like United States. So as to enable the Government to take timely remedial measures to safeguard the lives of the people and their properties living in the downstream of severl identified unsafe dams. Similar action must be taken even today to get the safety of tehri dam reviewed and necessary corrective action must be taken on lines similar to those followed in USA. For a better understanding of ensuring safety of this Tehri project the articles presented by the author on Sardar Sarovar Project in Gujarat and Polavaram dam proposed in Andhra Pradesh may be also studied in depth, in addition to the information contained in the following websites:
http://www.irn.org/programs/india/021022.tehrifactsheet.pdf
http://www.sfenvironment.com/articles_pr/2003/article/120503.htm [Precautionary principles on safety]
http://http//www.engineering.usu.edu/uwrl/www/faculty/DSB/evaluation.pdf
http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1901/19010330.htm
http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2020/stories/20031010002810000.htm [2:1 Court Judgement]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehri_dam
http://nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/free/dams/tehri_dam.htm
http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/01tehri.htm
For instance the National Standing Committee for seismic Design Parameters (NCSDP) of the Central Water Commission has recommended a seismic coefficient of 0.15 for the design of the Tehri dam. This is a very low value which makes the design unsafe. Infact Mr.B.B.L.Goyal, Chief Engineer of Tehri dam in a Technical paper(Technical session IX, CBIP, July, 1989) stated that Watana dam in Alaska and Karun dam in Iran in a similar tectonic setting were designed for seismic co-efficients of 0.5g on circum-pacific earthquake belt while Tehri dam was designed for only 0.15g. Infact Hensha dam, 120ft. high, in California was designed for a seismic co-efficients of 0.3g. Japanese codes specify the coefficient for embankment dams as 0.3g. Hence Tehri dam was under-designed because NCSDP experts furnished wrong design criteria, perhaps because several members were experts in collateral fields other than seismology and environmental safety.
Dr.V.K.Gaur, Director of NGRI an International expert in seismology suggested that the peak ground acceleration at Tehri may be taken as 1.0g but the experts of the Department of Earthquake Engineering of Roorkee University who were predominantly Civil Engineers insisted that Tehri will experience an earthquake of magnitude 7 on Richter scale and hence PGA for design purposes may be taken as 0.25g. This clearly shows that Roorkee University experts gave wrong technical data for design of the Tehri dam.
The Roorkee experts have gone out of the way to deride the estimate on seismicity of Tehri made by Dr.V..K.Gaur on 16-10-1986 in a technical meeting held under the chairmanship of M.A.Chitale, Chairman, CWC to study the feasibility of construction of Tehri dam for seismic considerations. Even during this meeting 25 experts representing Central Water Commission(CWC), Geological Survey of India(GSI), National Geological Research Institute(NGRI) and Roorkee University etc., came to an erroneous conclusion that Tehri will not experience an Earthquake of more than 7.0 to 7.2 magnitude and that the peak ground acceleration (PGA) of 0.25g recommended by the Roorkee experts will be adequate for the design of Tehri dam to ensure its safety. In the light of this unscientific affirmation on seismicity and PGA values recommended for the design of Tehri dam, the participants cannot be considered as relevant experts and the organisations represented by these experts become suspect.
When the Tehri project authorities presented Environmental Action Plans before the 13-member environmental expert committee of the Union Ministry of Environment for Environmental clearance in November 1989, the project authorities stated that the dam was designed by Roorkee experts for an Earthquake of magnitude 7 and a PGA of 0.5g and an effective PGA of 0.25g deduced by using Mc.Guire equation based on distance-magnitude relation. After consulting several experts and making an indepth study and visit to Tehri in January 1990, the committee concluded that seismicity at Tehri will 8.5 magnitude on the Richter scale as against magnitude 7 assumed by Roorkee experts and that in the event of dam failure many holy places like Rishikesh and Hardwar will be washed away and hence rejected the Tehri project.
Since Bhumbla committee report was not liked by the vested interests behind the project, it was rejected by the secretaries to the Union Government for Power, Water Resources, Mines and Environment who appointed another High Level committee of experts headed by Dhondial with representatives from Roorkee University, CWC, NGRI and Dr.V.K.Gaur, an eminent seismologist in April 1990 this committee accepted that seismicity of Tehri must be placed at 8.5 magnitude as recommended by Bhumbla committee in February 1990. It means that the design parameters recommended by all the previous expert committees are incorrect and the size and slopes of the dam designed on such incorrect data are bound to cause the collapse of the dam soon due to one reason or the other.
Although Dhondial committee revised seismicity of Tehri from 7 to 8.5 magnitude that involved 300 fold increase in the energy release of the earthquake, they failed to make a corresponding revision in the design of the dam. Except for Dr.V.K.Gaur, all the members of Dhondial committee belong to institutions which fed unscientific and incorrect design data for Tehri dam and perhaps it became a prestige issue for them to retain the previous size and slopes of the dam and for this purpose they discarded the Mc.Guire Equation used upto February 1990 and changed to Brune’s formulation for retaining by manipulations the PGA at 0.5g and effective PGA at 0.25g. It means the Dhondial committee wants people to believe that the impact of shooting against wall structure remains the same whether you use a police constable’s gun or a Bofors gun. Brune himself stated that Dhondial committee misused his formulation by using an under-estimated quality factor Q of 50 instead of 500 for Tehri site and consequently the PGA must be revised from 0.5g to over 1.0g. But the Dhondial committee refused to heed such scientific advice and hence Dr.V.K.Gaur, one of the committee members, submitted a note of dissent. The latest scientific work proves that Dhondial committee was wrong in choosing a low value for Q at Tehri.
Dhondial committee report containing the conflicting views of civil engineers and seismolgists regarding PGA and effective PGA values was considered by a committee of secretaries to the Government on 10-8-1990 and it was decided to refer the matter “to an independent seismological expert of international repute” for a final decision. Unfortunately the Department of Mines committed a grave blunder in referring this issue to Prof.Jai Krishna who was a civil Engineer with specialisation in structural, (earthquake engineering) and also perhaps a consultant to the project for a number of years. He was neither an independent expert nor a seismologist of international repute as he had a vested interest in the project. Unfortunately the Government placed undue reliance on his unscientific views.
Dr.Jai Krishna considered the Dhondial committee report and accepted the revised seismicity of Tehri as 8.5 magnitude. He estimated PGA at Tehri as 0.446g on the basis of Brune formulation and placed effective PGA at 0.25g. Based on the actual records compiled by Schnabel and Seed, Jai Krishna prepared a graph to place an upper bound on PGA for Earthquakes beyond 6.7 magnitude. Further he assumed that effective PGA will be about half of actually recorded PGA. These unscientific assumptions were made for manipulating the design parameters for Tehri dam. Infact the US experts used PGA values from 0.55g to 0.89g for design of about 15 dams in USA, Casitas Embankment dam of California, 335ft, high was designed to withstand an earthquake of magnitude 6.5 and PGA of 0.55g, Auburn dam of california, 233m high was designed to withstand an earthquake of magnitude 6.5 and PGA of 0.64g on the basis of two formulations of expert groups, one by Campbell and Bozorgina and the other by Abrahamson and Silva. Actual PGA records from Northridge, Tabas, Gazli, Kobe and Taiwan Earthquakes indicate PGA values of more than 0.8g and hence prove that the contention of Jai Krishna on the upperbound for PGA is very wrong. While the US experts discarded the concept of an upper bound PGA for ground motions irrespective of the magnitude of the earthquake above 6.7 Dr.Jai Krishna stuck to this discarded concept as it serves his vested interests. Thus Dhondial Expert committee report and Jai Krishna’s report on design parameters for Tehri dam are completely misleading and detrimental to national interests.
RUSSIAN EXPERTS HAVE PREDICTED COLLAPSE OF THE TEHRI DAM:
Several Russian experts stated that Tehri dam as designed is bound to collapse for several reasons.
---Mr.Fink, Soviet expert stated in November 1986 that Tehri dam has been designed to withstand an earthquake of intensity 8 on the MSK or MM scale and raised it to 9 intensity which is equivalent to about 7 magnitude on the Richter scale. But the Government of India blindly believed the value of 7 magnitude fixed by all the expert committees constituted before January 1990 but revised seismicity to magnitude 8.5 recommended by the Bhumbla committee in February 1990. It means the seismicity of Tehri has been increased to intensity 11 to 12 on MSK or MM scale and according to Soviet norms the sub-structure foundations will fail and consequently the dam will collapse.
---Mr.Davidov stated in January 1990 that Tehri dam was designed to withstand an intensity of 9 on the MSK or MM scale and it means as already stated above the dam fails due to an earthquake magnitude of 8.5 as accepted by the government.(Times of India, dt.8-2-1990)
---Mr.Michalov another Soviet expert at Tehri dam stated in October 1991 that Tehri dam has been designed to withstand intensity 9 on MSK or MM scale and that 10 points intensity would not occur at Tehri. It again implies that the dam has sated above will collapse due to an event of magnitude 8.5, equivalent to intensity 12 on MM scale at Tehri. (Hindustan Times, dt.31-10-1991)
---The Soviet experts who prepared the report entitled Tehri dam project on the Bhagirathi river in 1989 under contract No:53032/67652, Appendix-9 stated under Table No.2.3 and Table No.2.4 that for the third version pertaining to PGA (horizontal) of 0.64g and PGA (Vertical) of 1.28g the dam will fail. Infact Fig.2.19 of the report clearly shows the sketch of the dam failures pattern for version No.3. Hence the Soviet experts also predicted the impending collapse of the dam since 1986.
---It is shocking to read the results of the stability analysis for Tehri dam applying accelerogram of Gazli earthquake by the Hydro Project Institute, Moscow in 1992. Surprisingly the Soviet consultants certified “The Tehri dam is seismically stable under the loading of the Gazli earthquake accelerogram for a duration of 12 seconds and this report is evidently wrong, if we consider the earlier Soviet report of 1989 on the subject.”
---GAUR COMMITTEE OF EXPERTS VIRTUALLY REJECT TEHRI DAM:
--Out of 5 members of the Group of Experts appointed to study seismic safety of Tehri in 1996 by the Government of India 4 experts virtually rejected the project while one expert who was Vice –Chancellor of Roorkee University which was given project consultancy supported the dam by violating the stipulation of the conditional Environmental clearance given by the Union Government and also the safety norms propounded by International Committee on Large Dams. The Group of Experts (Gaur committee of 1996)considered the safety aspects of the project. They felt that for determining seismic safety of the dam it should be ensured as per International Standards (ICOLD-57, Bulletin 46) that
(a) the dam does not suffer significant damage, when subjected to OBE; and
(b) damage to the dam is limited and no catastrophic failure occurs leading to uncontrolled release of water when subjected to MCE.
The group further emphasized that the seismic risks of dam for earthquakes has two components
(i) structural systems and components inclusive of the dam body and
(ii) Socio-economic components
But unfortunately the group was allowed to make only a half hearted exercise on the seismic aspects of Tehri dam because it has made a casual study of the first component and the equally important socio-economic component was not studied.
The Group made recommendation which is like the judgement pronounced in the Shakespearian drama “Merchant of Venice” where Shylock will be asked to take his pound of flesh from the body of the accused without a drop of blood. Hence the Expert Group cannot be considered to have made a comprehensive and unconditional recommendation in favour of continuing the Tehri dam because 4 out of the 5 experts have expressed a different opinion citing the Russian studies which categorically said that the Tehri dam will collapse for the earthquake impact with PGA equal to ax= 0.64g and ah=1.28g. The extract of the opinion of the 4 experts is as follows.
“Based on a review of the reports made available to the Group and further studies conducted by DEQ-UOR on the behaviour of the idealised two dimensional model of the dam to the ground acceleration corresponding MCE, the Group came to the conclusion that the present design of the dam is expected to be structurally safe to withstand the MCE during the economic performance life of the dam-reservoir system.
However, a number of crucial questions could not be settled, notably the slope stability on account of the difficulties reported in Annexure-13, and the response of the dam to MCE in the longitudinal direction. Keeping in view, therefore, of the sensitivity of non-linear behaviour to possible variations in the values of seismic parameters such as PGA, duration, frequency content and material properties, still larger displacements cannot be ruled out. Infact as per the Soviet Report (Tehri Dam Project on the Bhagirathi river, India, Contract No.53032/67652, 9,G.P.73-74) to which attention was drawn by one member of the Group, the idealised section of a 200m high dam fails for the earthquake impact with PGA equal to az =0.64g; ah=1.28g. Whereas there are differences in the sections analysed in the above report and the current design of the Tehri dam attention is drawn to the fact that for some fortuitous combination of inputs combined with particular reservoir-dam conditions the performance of the dam to hold water at a future date may get affected.
It is therefore, further recommended that as a matter of abundant caution, the following work be carried out.
(i) 3-D non-linear analysis of the dam to evaluate its performance against the MCE.
(ii) A simulated dam break analysis to ensure that in the unlikely event of an uncontrolled release of water, the consequences are minimum.”
NCSDP COMMITTEE OF CENTRAL WATER COMMISSION MISUNDERSTOOD THE IMPLICATION OF THE SAFETY ASPECTS PRESENTED BY GAUR GROUP OF EXPERTS :
Unfortunately when the Gaur group of experts committee report was sent to the Central Water Commission it referred this reports to the National Standing Committee on seismic design parameters to review the report with respect to: a.) the parameters proposed for seismic safety of the Tehri dam and b) the need or otherwise to carrying out a 3-dimensional non-linear analysis of the dam against MCE. Perhaps the NCSDP was composed of general experts in civil Engineering who could influence the views of other specialists in different fields of science and hence they come to the wrong conclusions on 24-11-1998. They concluded that firstly there is no need to get the 3-dimensional non-linear analysis for Tehri dam and secondly the dam burst scenario and the disaster management for the project even though this condition was stipulated by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests in its conditional clearance. If there was any genuine expert in Civil Engineering he would have certainly argued that for dams in narrow canyons with length to height ratio being lessthan3, the response of the structures is 3-dimensional. Mejia and Seed made a comparative study of 2-dimensional and 3 dimensional dynamic analysis of the Oroville dam with length to height ratio of 7 and another hypothetical dam with length to height ratio of 2. Oroville dam was considered for earthquake parameters of magnitude 6.5 peak acceleration of 0.6g and frequency of 2.5 hertz while the second dam was considered for a magnitude of 5.7 peak acceleration 0.9g and frequency of 6.5 hertz. The effects of Canyon geometry on the dynamic response of the dam is stiffening of the system, causing higher natural frequencies of vibration for dam in narrow valleys. The study confirmed that the fundamental natural frequencies of the 3-dimensional dam model (L/H=2) were about 50% higher than those computed for the plane-strain analysis for the said earthquakes. For the Oroville dam (L/H=7). The 3-dimensional natural frequencies were 12% and 23% higher than those for the 2-dimensional model. Hence for dams with steeper canyons than the Oroville dam, it is necessary to perform 3-dimensional analysis to obtain satisfactory results for design purposes. Since Tehri dam has a steeper (L/H=2) canyons than the Oroville dam (L/H=7) 3 dimensional analysis must be made to obtain satisfactory results for design purposes. (Page 225 and 226 of Embankment dams by H.D. Sharma, Oxford and IBH, 1991). Since Dr.Nigam is reported to have opposed for 3-D Non-linear Analysis of Tehri dam and for the dambreak analysis and such views are against the standard international norms for dam safety his views must be rejected consequently the report of the group of experts must be considered as a rejection of the Tehri project.
Although the Union Ministry of Environment made it a condition for the Tehri Hydro Development Corporation to prepare a disaster management plan in consultation with the potential victims of the area it was not accordingly prepared. Hence the members of the NCSDP who refused to accept the recommendations of the Gaur group of Experts report cannot be treated as good experts as they have violated the principles of professional ethics and environmental regulations of the Union Government. NCSDP rejection of the report of Gaur committee is untenable.
GOVERNMENT SECRETARIES MISLEAD PRIME MINISTER AND THE NATION: It is much more unfortunate that most of the ecologically illiterate Secretaries to the Government who are not experts in seismology or Civil Engineering must have without raising any relevant scientific or technical questions blindly accepted the report of the so called expert committee “NCSDP” committee of the Central Water Commission. Having taken a wrong decision to accept NCSDP report, naturally the committee of senior secretaries to the Government must have misled the Prime Minister to take a blatantly wrong decision to continue work on the Tehri project which is most detrimental to public interests as already stated by the former Prime Minister Mrs.Indira Gandhi in 1979-80 itself.
Hence Tehri dam becomes a handy bomb for the terrorists to destroy North India and cause economic disaster for the whole nation. Due to the devastating Uttarakashi earthquake of October 1992 ND Jayal and Prof.Sekhar Singh filed public interest litigation case in the Supreme Court to consider the various issues like seismicity, dam safety, environment and rehabilitation issues of the Tehri dam. The Supreme Court bench comprising the judges, Justice Rajendra Babu, Justice Dharmadhikari and Justice Mathur took up the final hearing on the issues of Tehri Project from 21-2-2003. During the course of arguments the senior counsel Ms.Indira Jisingh strongly argued that the issue of safety of dam is related with the lives of lakhs of people living in the areas below the dam in the Gangetic belt. It was argued that the stipulations under the conditional environmental clearance given to the project by the Union Ministry of Environment on 19-7-1990 have not been satisfied by the Government. Before the last day of hearing on 25-2-2003 although the advocates for the petitioners requested to ensure compliance with the conditions stipulated in the environmental clearance the Government advocates claimed that they are taking care of the safety aspects of the Tehri dam and that there is no need for 3-dimensional study of the dam and that there is no need of dam break analysis and that there is no need of disaster management plan and that all these are only theoretical exercises. Ms.Indira Jisingh filed before the court a list of the dams in the world where 3-dimensional studies of the dams and dam break analysis for the dams were done as per the statutory requirements and the guidelines on dam safety. But the Government repeatedly told the court that these are only mental or theoretical exercises and that these studies are never made. Thus the Supreme Court has been presented with wrong information and that to by violating the conditions stipulated in the schedule for environmental clearance proforma under the Environmental Protection Act and the rules published by the Union Government in 1994. As per the BBC News report dated 2-9-2003 the Supreme Court of India dismissed the writ petition challenging the Tehri project on the grounds that there was no evidence that the construction was not following environmental guidelines and the verdict was passed by 3 judges who voted two- to- one against the petitioners.
Although several very prominet seismologists from foreign countries and also from India have presented high level of scientific evidence on the high seismic potential of the Tehri area making the site very unsafe for this massive project and dam break analysis reports were also submitted to the Union Ministry of Environment and the Bhumbla expert committee rejected the project on several grounds yet the non-seismological civil engineers and the non-environmental bureaucrats ultimately managed to pessurise the Prime Minister at the behest of the undue pressure from political and business lobby to clear the project and present insuffificent and unscientific evidence before the courts with the result that the right to life of millions of people living downstream of the dam could not be safeguarded as envisaged by the Indian consitution. If Mrs. Indira Gandhi were to be alive she would have fought tooth and nail against this most hazardous project in the world as she had lot of concern for public interest as opposed to the vested interests represented by the business interests supported by the civil engineers, the bureaucrats and the politicians. But in the long run nature will ultimately take vengeance against the human acts of fally against nature and hence intellectuals of India including the patriotic members of the fourth estate to investigate into the matterand get the dam safety reviewed as per the annual reviews of such unsafe dams being conducted in advanced countries like United States. So as to enable the Government to take timely remedial measures to safeguard the lives of the people and their properties living in the downstream of severl identified unsafe dams. Similar action must be taken even today to get the safety of tehri dam reviewed and necessary corrective action must be taken on lines similar to those followed in USA. For a better understanding of ensuring safety of this Tehri project the articles presented by the author on Sardar Sarovar Project in Gujarat and Polavaram dam proposed in Andhra Pradesh may be also studied in depth, in addition to the information contained in the following websites:
http://www.irn.org/programs/india/021022.tehrifactsheet.pdf
http://www.sfenvironment.com/articles_pr/2003/article/120503.htm [Precautionary principles on safety]
http://http//www.engineering.usu.edu/uwrl/www/faculty/DSB/evaluation.pdf
http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1901/19010330.htm
http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2020/stories/20031010002810000.htm [2:1 Court Judgement]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tehri_dam
http://nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/free/dams/tehri_dam.htm
http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/sep/01tehri.htm
TEHRI DAM IS A TIME BOMB
Like their attacks on USA, if terrorists attack Tehri Dam, Indian National Security and Economy will be in shambles. TEHRI DAM A BOON OR A CURSE FOR INDIA Prof.T.Shivaji Rao, Director, Centre for Environmental Studies, GITAM Institute of Technology, VISAKHAPATNAM-530 045.
PROF.T.SHIVAJI RAO abstracted this material from his book TEHRI DAM IS A TIME BOMB Director, Centre for Environmental Studies, GITAM Institute of Technology, Visakhapatnam-530 045.Formerly Principal, College of Engineering, Andhra University, Waltair, P.W.D Engineer at Nagarjuna Sagar dam. As an International Expert he was invited by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 1976. He delivered key-note addresses at two international conferences at Khatmandu, Nepal in 1979 and 1997. He is the recipient of Best State Teacher Award for 1986-87 and the Swami Pranavananda .National Award for 1991 of the University Grants Commission on Ecology and Environmental Sciences. He was a member of the A.P.State Pollution Control Board and Chairman of its Technical Committee and was member of the Environmental Appraisal committees of the Union Ministry of Environmental and Forests for Industries and River Valley projects (and during this period had an opportunity to review the Environmental Impact of Tehri Dam as a member of the Bhumbla Committee and recently as a member of the high-power committee on seismic safety of Tehri dam appointed by the Government of India in April 2001, the author studied all the relevant reports on seismic safety of Tehri dam).
As a member of the Environmental Appraisal Committee of the Union Ministry of Environment in 1989-90 I am glad to state that our committee headed by Dr.Bhumbla studied in depth the safety aspects of the Tehri dam from geological, seismic, siltation design and disaster management and economic aspects and rejected the project.
The project was intended to generate 600MW hydro-power was estimated at about Rs. 200 crores in 1972 when the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister influenced the Planning Commission to give clearance to the project. The 260 meter height earth and rock-fill dam at Tehri across Bhagirathi has a storage capacity of 3500 million cu. m. of water with an underground power house of 1000MW under stage-I and another 1000MW with reversible pump turbines under Stage-II (Pump storage plant). It has another 103.5 meter high concrete dam with a gross storage of 86 million cu.m. of water as a balancing reservoir with a surface power house of 400MW at Koteswar, 22km downstream of Tehri dam site. 4238 million units of energy will be produced per year. Tehri reservoir water is proposed to irrigate an additional area of 2.7 lakh ha. in non-monsoon period in Upper and Lower Ganga canal command area and it stabilises irrigation in the existing 6 lakh ha. Tehri power station will be run as a peaking station with the construction of Koteswar dam. If Hydel power is not available for meeting peaking requirement this would have to be met by diesel or gas-based power plants whose generation cost would be double that of hydro-power. The dam was underdesigned by using low seismicity for Tehri region. Since the dam is located in between the two crashing tectonic plates of India and Tibet known for devastating earthquakes, the risks involved like dam failure result in wiping out of existence several millions of people including saints and sadhu’s of Devprayag, Rishikesh, Hardwar and other places. The devastating floods caused by the inevitable collapse of the Earth and Rockfill dam at Tehri and the concrete dam at Koteswar, 22kms down, will destroy lakhs of villages and hundreds of towns and cities all long the river Ganges in U.P., Bihar and Bengal.
Again as a member of the expert committee headed by Hon’ble Union Minister Dr.M.M.Joshi to study the seismic safety of Tehri dam, I have presented evidence from several angles to show that the Tehri dam project is under-designed and highly hazardous due to the anticipated maximum credible accident of magnitude 8.5 on Richter scale which is forecast by International experts to occur at Tehri within the next 10 to 20 years as reported in the latest US Science magazines and News Week.
TERORISTS MAY ATTACK TEHRI DAM ?
I had already indicated that since Tehri dam plans to store water over a depth of 850ft. (260meters) any bombing by the agents of enemy countries or militants or terrorists, the dam being made of earth, sand and gravel will easily collapse, killing millions of Indians and destroying holy temples and sacred towns and cities as stated already. Crops, buildings and properties estimated at more than several lakh crores of rupees will be destroyed. In view of the latest terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre and Pentagaon buildings in USA a similar attack by terrorists, militants or enemies on Tehri dam should be anticipated because it will be an inexpensive bid for them to easily destroy the life and culture of the whole of Aryavartha.
Infact Dr.Narendrapuri, Professor of Structural Engineering, Roorkee University presented an animated picture before Dr.M.M.Joshi and our committee members as to how the Westerns bombed one of the dams when flash floods caused large scale destruction of human and animal populations and properties on the down stream side of the broken dam.
As it is the Tehri dam is under-designed and very unsafe. But some of the proponents of the dam who have vested interests in the project are misleading the secretaries to the Government who inturn are misleading the Prime Minister to take unscientific and hazardous decisions to continue work on the Tehri project even though it is highly detrimental to the life and culture of people of India in general and the Gangetic states in particular. Tehri dam is an easy target for terrorists to ruin the economy of India and thereby threaten the national security, promote the growth of poverty, unemployment and violence in this holy land of Buddha, Mahavir and Mahatma Gandhi.
Surprisingly the Union Ministry of Power in its letter dated 10-4-2001 on the constitution of the expert committee to examine the seismic safety of Tehri dam in the light of the Bhuj Earthquake under the chairmanship of Dr.M.M.Joshi states that the Tehri dam is safe to withstand the maximum credible earthquake as per the experts. There is lot of misunderstanding among the experts as to what exactly is meant by the seismic safety of Tehri dam because most of the experts who pronounced judgements on the issue have taken academic degrees in the collateral but not the relevant seismic and environmental safety fields of study and hence their decisions are bound to be imperfect, unscientific and harmful to national interests. WHO IS AN EXPERT? HOW SHOULD AN EXPERT OPINION BE EVALUATED? According to law an expert opinion becomes relevant for right decision, if only it conforms to certain fundamental norms. According to sec.45 of the Evidence Act, a person specially skilled, is considered as an expert. When the court has to form an opinion upon a point of science, art or engineering, the opinions upon that point of such persons who are specially skilled in such science, art or engineering are relevant facts. But an expert in order to become a competent witness need not acquire special knowledge or skill professionally because it is enough if he made a special study of the subject or acquired special experience therein.
Before the testimony of a person becomes acceptable his competency as an expert must be proved, may be by showing that he possesses the required qualification or that he has acquired skill therein by experience. An expert should be subjected to cross examination because like any other witness, the expert is fallible and the real value of his evidence consists in the rightful inferences which he draws from what he himself has observed and not from what he merely surmises. Facts which are not otherwise relevant become relevant, if they support or overthrow the opinion of experts when such opinions are relevant.
Where the opinion of an expert is to be acceptable, the grounds or reasoning upon which such opinion is based may also be inquired into. Opinion is no evidence, without assigning the reason for such opinion. The correctness of the opinion can better be estimated in many instances when the reason upon which is it is based are known. If the reasons are frivolous or inconclusive, the opinion is worth nothing. While the value of non-expert witness depends upon the credibility of the witness (i.e. his inclination and capacity of telling the truth), the value of opinion of an expert depends largely on the cogency of the reasons on which it is based, and the competency of the expert to form a reliable opinion. An expert opinion cannot be the basis for decision-making, unless the expert opinion is also corroborated by other evidence.
HOW SOME EXPERTS HAVE MISLED THE GOVERNMENT ON SAFETY OF TEHRI DAM:
For instance the National Standing Committee for seismic Design Parameters (NCSDP) of the Central Water Commission has recommended a seismic coefficient of 0.15 for the design of the Tehri dam. This is a very low value which makes the design unsafe. Infact Mr.B.B.L.Goyal, Chief Engineer of Tehri dam in a Technical paper(Technical session IX, CBIP, July, 1989) stated that Watana dam in Alaska and Karun dam in Iran in a similar tectonic setting were designed for seismic co-efficients of 0.5g on circum-pacific earthquake belt while Tehri dam was designed for only 0.15g. Infact Hensha dam, 120ft. high, in California was designed for a seismic co-efficients of 0.3g. Japanese codes specify the coefficient for embankment dams as 0.3g. Hence Tehri dam was under-designed because NCSDP experts furnished wrong design criteria, perhaps because several members were experts in collateral fields other than seismology and environmental safety.
Dr.V.K.Gaur, Director of NGRI an International expert in seismology suggested that the peak ground acceleration at Tehri may be taken as 1.0g but the experts of the Department of Earthquake Engineering of Roorkee University who were predominantly Civil Engineers insisted that Tehri will experience an earthquake of magnitude 7 on Richter scale and hence PGA for design purposes may be taken as 0.25g. This clearly shows that Roorkee University experts gave wrong technical data for design of the Tehri dam.
The Roorkee experts have gone out of the way to deride the estimate on seismicity of Tehri made by Dr.V..K.Gaur on 16-10-1986 in a technical meeting held under the chairmanship of M.A.Chitale, Chairman, CWC to study the feasibility of construction of Tehri dam for seismic considerations. Even during this meeting 25 experts representing Central Water Commission(CWC), Geological Survey of India(GSI), National Geological Research Institute(NGRI) and Roorkee University etc., came to an erroneous conclusion that Tehri will not experience an Earthquake of more than 7.0 to 7.2 magnitude and that the peak ground acceleration (PGA) of 0.25g recommended by the Roorkee experts will be adequate for the design of Tehri dam to ensure its safety. In the light of this unscientific affirmation on seismicity and PGA values recommended for the design of Tehri dam, the participants cannot be considered as relevant experts and the organisations represented by these experts become suspect.
When the Tehri project authorities presented Environmental Action Plans before the 13-member environmental expert committee of the Union Ministry of Environment for Environmental clearance in November 1989, the project authorities stated that the dam was designed by Roorkee experts for an Earthquake of magnitude 7 and a PGA of 0.5g and an effective PGA of 0.25g deduced by using Mc.Guire equation based on distance-magnitude relation. After consulting several experts and making an indepth study and visit to Tehri in January 1990, the committee concluded that seismicity at Tehri will 8.5 magnitude on the Richter scale as against magnitude 7 assumed by Roorkee experts and that in the event of dam failure many holy places like Rishikesh and Hardwar will be washed away and hence rejected the Tehri project.
Since Bhumbla committee report was not liked by the vested interests behind the project, it was rejected by the secretaries to the Union Government for Power, Water Resources, Mines and Environment who appointed another High Level committee of experts headed by Dhondial with representatives from Roorkee University, CWC, NGRI and Dr.V.K.Gaur, an eminent seismologist in April 1990 this committee accepted that seismicity of Tehri must be placed at 8.5 magnitude as recommended by Bhumbla committee in February 1990. It means that the design parameters recommended by all the previous expert committees are incorrect and the size and slopes of the dam designed on such incorrect data are bound to cause the collapse of the dam soon due to one reason or the other.
Although Dhondial committee revised seismicity of Tehri from 7 to 8.5 magnitude that involved 300 fold increase in the energy release of the earthquake, they failed to make a corresponding revision in the design of the dam. Except for Dr.V.K.Gaur, all the members of Dhondial committee belong to institutions which fed unscientific and incorrect design data for Tehri dam and perhaps it became a prestige issue for them to retain the previous size and slopes of the dam and for this purpose they discarded the Mc.Guire Equation used upto February 1990 and changed to Brune’s formulation for retaining by manipulations the PGA at 0.5g and effective PGA at 0.25g. It means the Dhondial committee wants people to believe that the impact of shooting against wall structure remains the same whether you use a police constable’s gun or a Bofors gun. Brune himself stated that Dhondial committee misused his formulation by using an under-estimated quality factor Q of 50 instead of 500 for Tehri site and consequently the PGA must be revised from 0.5g to over 1.0g. But the Dhondial committee refused to heed such scientific advice and hence Dr.V.K.Gaur, one of the committee members, submitted a note of dissent. The latest scientific work proves that Dhondial committee was wrong in choosing a low value for Q at Tehri.
Dhondial committee report containing the conflicting views of civil engineers and seismolgists regarding PGA and effective PGA values was considered by a committee of secretaries to the Government on 10-8-1990 and it was decided to refer the matter “to an independent seismological expert of international repute” for a final decision. Unfortunately the Department of Mines committed a grave blunder in referring this issue to Prof.Jai Krishna who was a civil Engineer with specialisation in structural, (earthquake engineering) and also perhaps a consultant to the project for a number of years. He was neither an independent expert nor a seismologist of international repute as he had a vested interest in the project. Unfortunately the Government placed undue reliance on his unscientific views.
Dr.Jai Krishna considered the Dhondial committee report and accepted the revised seismicity of Tehri as 8.5 magnitude. He estimated PGA at Tehri as 0.446g on the basis of Brune formulation and placed effective PGA at 0.25g. Based on the actual records compiled by Schnabel and Seed, Jai Krishna prepared a graph to place an upper bound on PGA for Earthquakes beyond 6.7 magnitude. Further he assumed that effective PGA will be about half of actually recorded PGA. These unscientific assumptions were made for manipulating the design parameters for Tehri dam. Infact the US experts used PGA values from 0.55g to 0.89g for design of about 15 dams in USA, Casitas Embankment dam of California, 335ft, high was designed to withstand an earthquake of magnitude 6.5 and PGA of 0.55g, Auburn dam of california, 233m high was designed to withstand an earthquake of magnitude 6.5 and PGA of 0.64g on the basis of two formulations of expert groups, one by Campbell and Bozorgina and the other by Abrahamson and Silva. Actual PGA records from Northridge, Tabas, Gazli, Kobe and Taiwan Earthquakes indicate PGA values of more than 0.8g and hence prove that the contention of Jai Krishna on the upperbound for PGA is very wrong. While the US experts discarded the concept of an upper bound PGA for ground motions irrespective of the magnitude of the earthquake above 6.7 Dr.Jai Krishna stuck to this discarded concept as it serves his vested interests. Thus Dhondial Expert committee report and Jai Krishna’s report on design parameters for Tehri dam are completely misleading and detrimental to national interests.
RUSSIAN EXPERTS HAVE PREDICTED COLLAPSE OF THE TEHRI DAM: Several Russian experts stated that Tehri dam as designed is bound to collapse for several reasons.
Mr.Fink, Soviet expert stated in November 1986 that Tehri dam has been designed to withstand an earthquake of intensity 8 on the MSK or MM scale and raised it to 9 intensity which is equivalent to about 7 magnitude on the Richter scale. But the Government of India blindly believed the value of 7 magnitude fixed by all the expert committees constituted before January 1990 but revised seismicity to magnitude 8.5 recommended by the Bhumbla committee in February 1990. It means the seismicity of Tehri has been increased to intensity 11 to 12 on MSK or MM scale and according to Soviet norms the sub-structure foundations will fail and consequently the dam will collapse.
Mr.Davidov stated in January 1990 that Tehri dam was designed to withstand an intensity of 9 on the MSK or MM scale and it means as already stated above the dam fails due to an earthquake magnitude of 8.5 as accepted by the government.(Times of India, dt.8-2-1990)
Mr.Michalov another Soviet expert at Tehri dam stated in October 1991 that Tehri dam has been designed to withstand intensity 9 on MSK or MM scale and that 10 points intensity would not occur at Tehri. It again implies that the dam has sated above will collapse due to an event of magnitude 8.5, equivalent to intensity 12 on MM scale at Tehri. (Hindustan Times, dt.31-10-1991)
The Soviet experts who prepared the report entitled Tehri dam project on the Bhagirathi river in 1989 under contract No:53032/67652, Appendix-9 stated under Table No.2.3 and Table No.2.4 that for the third version pertaining to PGA (horizontal) of 0.64g and PGA (Vertical) of 1.28g the dam will fail. Infact Fig.2.19 of the report clearly shows the sketch of the dam failures pattern for version No.3. Hence the Soviet experts also predicted the impending collapse of the dam since 1986.
It is shocking to read the results of the stability analysis for Tehri dam applying accelerogram of Gazli earthquake by the Hydro Project Institute, Moscow in 1992. Surprisingly the Soviet consultants certified “The Tehri dam is seismically stable under the loading of the Gazli earthquake accelerogram for a duration of 12 seconds and this report is evidently wrong, if we consider the earlier Soviet report of 1989 on the subject.”
GAUR COMMITTEE OF EXPERTS VIRTUALLY REJECT TEHRI DAM:
Out of 5 members of the Group of Experts appointed to study seismic safety of Tehri in 1996 by the Government of India 4 experts virtually rejected the project while one expert who was Vice –Chancellor of Roorkee University which was given project consultancy supported the dam by violating the stipulation of the conditional Environmental clearance given by the Union Government and also the safety norms propounded by International Committee on Large Dams. The Group of Experts (Gaur committee of 1996)considered the safety aspects of the project. They felt that for determining seismic safety of the dam it should be ensured as per International Standards (ICOLD-57, Bulletin 46) that (a) the dam does not suffer significant damage, when subjected to OBE; and (b) damage to the dam is limited and no catastrophic failure occurs leading to uncontrolled release of water when subjected to MCE. The group further emphasized that the seismic risks of dam for earthquakes has two components (i) structural systems and components inclusive of the dam body and (ii) Socio-economic components
But unfortunately the group was allowed to make only a half hearted exercise on the seismic aspects of Tehri dam because it has made a casual study of the first component and the equally important socio-economic component was not studied. The Group made recommendation which is like the judgement pronounced in the Shakespearian drama “Merchant of Venice” where Shylock will be asked to take his pound of flesh from the body of the accused without a drop of blood. Hence the Expert Group cannot be considered to have made a comprehensive and unconditional recommendation in favour of continuing the Tehri dam because 4 out of the 5 experts have expressed a different opinion citing the Russian studies which categorically said that the Tehri dam will collapse for the earthquake impact with PGA equal to ax= 0.64g and ah=1.28g. The extract of the opinion of the 4 experts is as follows.
“Based on a review of the reports made available to the Group and further studies conducted by DEQ-UOR on the behaviour of the idealised two dimensional model of the dam to the ground acceleration corresponding MCE, the Group came to the conclusion that the present design of the dam is expected to be structurally safe to withstand the MCE during the economic performance life of the dam-reservoir system.
However, a number of crucial questions could not be settled, notably the slope stability on account of the difficulties reported in Annexure-13, and the response of the dam to MCE in the longitudinal direction. Keeping in view, therefore, of the sensitivity of non-linear behaviour to possible variations in the values of seismic parameters such as PGA, duration, frequency content and material properties, still larger displacements cannot be ruled out. Infact as per the Soviet Report (Tehri Dam Project on the Bhagirathi river, India, Contract No.53032/67652, 9,G.P.73-74) to which attention was drawn by one member of the Group, the idealised section of a 200m high dam fails for the earthquake impact with PGA equal to az =0.64g; ah=1.28g. Whereas there are differences in the sections analysed in the above report and the current design of the Tehri dam attention is drawn to the fact that for some fortuitous combination of inputs combined with particular reservoir-dam conditions the performance of the dam to hold water at a future date may get affected. It is therefore, further recommended that as a matter of abundant caution, the following work be carried out. (i) 3-D non-linear analysis of the dam to evaluate its performance against the MCE. (ii) A simulated dam break analysis to ensure that in the unlikely event of an uncontrolled release of water, the consequences are minimum.”
CASITAS EMBANKMENT DAM, VENTURA, CALIFORNIA
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in the publication on design standards for dams presented seismic design and analysis of Casitas Embankment dam on Coyoto Creek about 6.5 miles North West of Ventura, California. The dam is 335 ft. high with a crest length of 2000ft. and crest length of 200ft. and crest width of 40ft. The foundation has sands, clay and gravels overline bedrock.
NCSDP COMMITTEE OF CENTRAL WATER COMMISSION MISUNDERSTOOD THE IMPLICATION OF THE SAFETY ASPECTS PRESENTED BY GAUR GROUP OF EXPERTS :
Unfortunately when the Gaur group of experts committee report was sent to the Central Water Commission it referred this reports to the National Standing Committee on seismic design parameters to review the report with respect to: a.) the parameters proposed for seismic safety of the Tehri dam and b) the need or otherwise to carrying out a 3-dimensional non-linear analysis of the dam against MCE. Perhaps the NCSDP was composed of general experts in civil Engineering who could influence the views of other specialists in different fields of science and hence they come to the wrong conclusions on 24-11-1998. They concluded that firstly there is no need to get the 3-dimensional non-linear analysis for Tehri dam and secondly the dam burst scenario and the disaster management for the project even though this condition was stipulated by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests in its conditional clearance. If there was any genuine expert in Civil Engineering he would have certainly argued that for dams in narrow canyons with length to height ratio being lessthan3, the response of the structures is 3-dimensional. Mejia and Seed made a comparative study of 2-dimensional and 3 dimensional dynamic analysis of the Oroville dam with length to height ratio of 7 and another hypothetical dam with length to height ratio of 2. Oroville dam was considered for earthquake parameters of magnitude 6.5 peak acceleration of 0.6g and frequency of 2.5 hertz while the second dam was considered for a magnitude of 5.7 peak acceleration 0.9g and frequency of 6.5 hertz. The effects of Canyon geometry on the dynamic response of the dam is stiffening of the system, causing higher natural frequencies of vibration for dam in narrow valleys. The study confirmed that the fundamental natural frequencies of the 3-dimensional dam model (L/H=2) were about 50% higher than those computed for the plane-strain analysis for the said earthquakes. For the Oroville dam (L/H=7). The 3-dimensional natural frequencies were 12% and 23% higher than those for the 2-dimensional model. Hence for dams with steeper canyons than the Oroville dam, it is necessary to perform 3-dimensional analysis to obtain satisfactory results for design purposes. Since Tehri dam has a steeper (L/H=2) canyons than the Oroville dam (L/H=7) 3 dimensional analysis must be made to obtain satisfactory results for design purposes. (Page 225 and 226 of Embankment dams by H.D. Sharma, Oxford and IBH, 1991). Since Dr.Nigam is reported to have opposed for 3-D Non-linear Analysis of Tehri dam and for the dambreak analysis and such views are against the standard international norms for dam safety his views must be rejected consequently the report of the group of experts must be considered as a rejection of the Tehri project.
Although the Union Ministry of Environment made it a condition for the Tehri Hydro Development Corporation to prepare a disaster management plan in consultation with the potential victims of the area it was not accordingly prepared. Hence the members of the NCSDP who refused to accept the recommendations of the Gaur group of Experts report cannot be treated as good experts as they have violated the principles of professional ethics and environmental regulations of the Union Government. NCSDP rejection of the report of Gaur committee is untenable.
GOVERNMENT SECRETARIES MISLEAD PRIME MINISTER AND THE NATION: It is much more unfortunate that most of the ecologically illiterate Secretaries to the Government who are not experts in seismology or Civil Engineering must have without raising any relevant scientific or technical questions blindly accepted the report of the so called expert committee “NCSDP” committee of the Central Water Commission. Having taken a wrong decision to accept NCSDP report, naturally the committee of senior secretaries to the Government must have misled the Prime Minister to take a blatantly wrong decision to continue work on the Tehri project which is most detrimental to public interests as already stated by the former Prime Minister Mrs.Indira Gandhi in 1979-80 itself.
Hence Tehri dam becomes a handy bomb for the terrorists to destroy North India and cause economic disaster for the whole nation. Thus Tehri dam should be scrapped or in order to save infructuous expenditure so far incurred, the dam must be treated as a run-off the river scheme to store minimum water so that even if the dam were to collapse it will not cause unbearable loss of life and properties in the downstream areas of the Ganga basin.
As a member of the Environmental Appraisal Committee of the Union Ministry of Environment in 1989-90 I am glad to state that our committee headed by Dr.Bhumbla studied in depth the safety aspects of the Tehri dam from geological, seismic, siltation design and disaster management and economic aspects and rejected the project.
The project was intended to generate 600MW hydro-power was estimated at about Rs. 200 crores in 1972 when the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister influenced the Planning Commission to give clearance to the project. The 260 meter height earth and rock-fill dam at Tehri across Bhagirathi has a storage capacity of 3500 million cu. m. of water with an underground power house of 1000MW under stage-I and another 1000MW with reversible pump turbines under Stage-II (Pump storage plant). It has another 103.5 meter high concrete dam with a gross storage of 86 million cu.m. of water as a balancing reservoir with a surface power house of 400MW at Koteswar, 22km downstream of Tehri dam site. 4238 million units of energy will be produced per year. Tehri reservoir water is proposed to irrigate an additional area of 2.7 lakh ha. in non-monsoon period in Upper and Lower Ganga canal command area and it stabilises irrigation in the existing 6 lakh ha. Tehri power station will be run as a peaking station with the construction of Koteswar dam. If Hydel power is not available for meeting peaking requirement this would have to be met by diesel or gas-based power plants whose generation cost would be double that of hydro-power. The dam was underdesigned by using low seismicity for Tehri region. Since the dam is located in between the two crashing tectonic plates of India and Tibet known for devastating earthquakes, the risks involved like dam failure result in wiping out of existence several millions of people including saints and sadhu’s of Devprayag, Rishikesh, Hardwar and other places. The devastating floods caused by the inevitable collapse of the Earth and Rockfill dam at Tehri and the concrete dam at Koteswar, 22kms down, will destroy lakhs of villages and hundreds of towns and cities all long the river Ganges in U.P., Bihar and Bengal.
Again as a member of the expert committee headed by Hon’ble Union Minister Dr.M.M.Joshi to study the seismic safety of Tehri dam, I have presented evidence from several angles to show that the Tehri dam project is under-designed and highly hazardous due to the anticipated maximum credible accident of magnitude 8.5 on Richter scale which is forecast by International experts to occur at Tehri within the next 10 to 20 years as reported in the latest US Science magazines and News Week.
TERORISTS MAY ATTACK TEHRI DAM ?
I had already indicated that since Tehri dam plans to store water over a depth of 850ft. (260meters) any bombing by the agents of enemy countries or militants or terrorists, the dam being made of earth, sand and gravel will easily collapse, killing millions of Indians and destroying holy temples and sacred towns and cities as stated already. Crops, buildings and properties estimated at more than several lakh crores of rupees will be destroyed. In view of the latest terrorist attack on the World Trade Centre and Pentagaon buildings in USA a similar attack by terrorists, militants or enemies on Tehri dam should be anticipated because it will be an inexpensive bid for them to easily destroy the life and culture of the whole of Aryavartha.
Infact Dr.Narendrapuri, Professor of Structural Engineering, Roorkee University presented an animated picture before Dr.M.M.Joshi and our committee members as to how the Westerns bombed one of the dams when flash floods caused large scale destruction of human and animal populations and properties on the down stream side of the broken dam.
As it is the Tehri dam is under-designed and very unsafe. But some of the proponents of the dam who have vested interests in the project are misleading the secretaries to the Government who inturn are misleading the Prime Minister to take unscientific and hazardous decisions to continue work on the Tehri project even though it is highly detrimental to the life and culture of people of India in general and the Gangetic states in particular. Tehri dam is an easy target for terrorists to ruin the economy of India and thereby threaten the national security, promote the growth of poverty, unemployment and violence in this holy land of Buddha, Mahavir and Mahatma Gandhi.
Surprisingly the Union Ministry of Power in its letter dated 10-4-2001 on the constitution of the expert committee to examine the seismic safety of Tehri dam in the light of the Bhuj Earthquake under the chairmanship of Dr.M.M.Joshi states that the Tehri dam is safe to withstand the maximum credible earthquake as per the experts. There is lot of misunderstanding among the experts as to what exactly is meant by the seismic safety of Tehri dam because most of the experts who pronounced judgements on the issue have taken academic degrees in the collateral but not the relevant seismic and environmental safety fields of study and hence their decisions are bound to be imperfect, unscientific and harmful to national interests. WHO IS AN EXPERT? HOW SHOULD AN EXPERT OPINION BE EVALUATED? According to law an expert opinion becomes relevant for right decision, if only it conforms to certain fundamental norms. According to sec.45 of the Evidence Act, a person specially skilled, is considered as an expert. When the court has to form an opinion upon a point of science, art or engineering, the opinions upon that point of such persons who are specially skilled in such science, art or engineering are relevant facts. But an expert in order to become a competent witness need not acquire special knowledge or skill professionally because it is enough if he made a special study of the subject or acquired special experience therein.
Before the testimony of a person becomes acceptable his competency as an expert must be proved, may be by showing that he possesses the required qualification or that he has acquired skill therein by experience. An expert should be subjected to cross examination because like any other witness, the expert is fallible and the real value of his evidence consists in the rightful inferences which he draws from what he himself has observed and not from what he merely surmises. Facts which are not otherwise relevant become relevant, if they support or overthrow the opinion of experts when such opinions are relevant.
Where the opinion of an expert is to be acceptable, the grounds or reasoning upon which such opinion is based may also be inquired into. Opinion is no evidence, without assigning the reason for such opinion. The correctness of the opinion can better be estimated in many instances when the reason upon which is it is based are known. If the reasons are frivolous or inconclusive, the opinion is worth nothing. While the value of non-expert witness depends upon the credibility of the witness (i.e. his inclination and capacity of telling the truth), the value of opinion of an expert depends largely on the cogency of the reasons on which it is based, and the competency of the expert to form a reliable opinion. An expert opinion cannot be the basis for decision-making, unless the expert opinion is also corroborated by other evidence.
HOW SOME EXPERTS HAVE MISLED THE GOVERNMENT ON SAFETY OF TEHRI DAM:
For instance the National Standing Committee for seismic Design Parameters (NCSDP) of the Central Water Commission has recommended a seismic coefficient of 0.15 for the design of the Tehri dam. This is a very low value which makes the design unsafe. Infact Mr.B.B.L.Goyal, Chief Engineer of Tehri dam in a Technical paper(Technical session IX, CBIP, July, 1989) stated that Watana dam in Alaska and Karun dam in Iran in a similar tectonic setting were designed for seismic co-efficients of 0.5g on circum-pacific earthquake belt while Tehri dam was designed for only 0.15g. Infact Hensha dam, 120ft. high, in California was designed for a seismic co-efficients of 0.3g. Japanese codes specify the coefficient for embankment dams as 0.3g. Hence Tehri dam was under-designed because NCSDP experts furnished wrong design criteria, perhaps because several members were experts in collateral fields other than seismology and environmental safety.
Dr.V.K.Gaur, Director of NGRI an International expert in seismology suggested that the peak ground acceleration at Tehri may be taken as 1.0g but the experts of the Department of Earthquake Engineering of Roorkee University who were predominantly Civil Engineers insisted that Tehri will experience an earthquake of magnitude 7 on Richter scale and hence PGA for design purposes may be taken as 0.25g. This clearly shows that Roorkee University experts gave wrong technical data for design of the Tehri dam.
The Roorkee experts have gone out of the way to deride the estimate on seismicity of Tehri made by Dr.V..K.Gaur on 16-10-1986 in a technical meeting held under the chairmanship of M.A.Chitale, Chairman, CWC to study the feasibility of construction of Tehri dam for seismic considerations. Even during this meeting 25 experts representing Central Water Commission(CWC), Geological Survey of India(GSI), National Geological Research Institute(NGRI) and Roorkee University etc., came to an erroneous conclusion that Tehri will not experience an Earthquake of more than 7.0 to 7.2 magnitude and that the peak ground acceleration (PGA) of 0.25g recommended by the Roorkee experts will be adequate for the design of Tehri dam to ensure its safety. In the light of this unscientific affirmation on seismicity and PGA values recommended for the design of Tehri dam, the participants cannot be considered as relevant experts and the organisations represented by these experts become suspect.
When the Tehri project authorities presented Environmental Action Plans before the 13-member environmental expert committee of the Union Ministry of Environment for Environmental clearance in November 1989, the project authorities stated that the dam was designed by Roorkee experts for an Earthquake of magnitude 7 and a PGA of 0.5g and an effective PGA of 0.25g deduced by using Mc.Guire equation based on distance-magnitude relation. After consulting several experts and making an indepth study and visit to Tehri in January 1990, the committee concluded that seismicity at Tehri will 8.5 magnitude on the Richter scale as against magnitude 7 assumed by Roorkee experts and that in the event of dam failure many holy places like Rishikesh and Hardwar will be washed away and hence rejected the Tehri project.
Since Bhumbla committee report was not liked by the vested interests behind the project, it was rejected by the secretaries to the Union Government for Power, Water Resources, Mines and Environment who appointed another High Level committee of experts headed by Dhondial with representatives from Roorkee University, CWC, NGRI and Dr.V.K.Gaur, an eminent seismologist in April 1990 this committee accepted that seismicity of Tehri must be placed at 8.5 magnitude as recommended by Bhumbla committee in February 1990. It means that the design parameters recommended by all the previous expert committees are incorrect and the size and slopes of the dam designed on such incorrect data are bound to cause the collapse of the dam soon due to one reason or the other.
Although Dhondial committee revised seismicity of Tehri from 7 to 8.5 magnitude that involved 300 fold increase in the energy release of the earthquake, they failed to make a corresponding revision in the design of the dam. Except for Dr.V.K.Gaur, all the members of Dhondial committee belong to institutions which fed unscientific and incorrect design data for Tehri dam and perhaps it became a prestige issue for them to retain the previous size and slopes of the dam and for this purpose they discarded the Mc.Guire Equation used upto February 1990 and changed to Brune’s formulation for retaining by manipulations the PGA at 0.5g and effective PGA at 0.25g. It means the Dhondial committee wants people to believe that the impact of shooting against wall structure remains the same whether you use a police constable’s gun or a Bofors gun. Brune himself stated that Dhondial committee misused his formulation by using an under-estimated quality factor Q of 50 instead of 500 for Tehri site and consequently the PGA must be revised from 0.5g to over 1.0g. But the Dhondial committee refused to heed such scientific advice and hence Dr.V.K.Gaur, one of the committee members, submitted a note of dissent. The latest scientific work proves that Dhondial committee was wrong in choosing a low value for Q at Tehri.
Dhondial committee report containing the conflicting views of civil engineers and seismolgists regarding PGA and effective PGA values was considered by a committee of secretaries to the Government on 10-8-1990 and it was decided to refer the matter “to an independent seismological expert of international repute” for a final decision. Unfortunately the Department of Mines committed a grave blunder in referring this issue to Prof.Jai Krishna who was a civil Engineer with specialisation in structural, (earthquake engineering) and also perhaps a consultant to the project for a number of years. He was neither an independent expert nor a seismologist of international repute as he had a vested interest in the project. Unfortunately the Government placed undue reliance on his unscientific views.
Dr.Jai Krishna considered the Dhondial committee report and accepted the revised seismicity of Tehri as 8.5 magnitude. He estimated PGA at Tehri as 0.446g on the basis of Brune formulation and placed effective PGA at 0.25g. Based on the actual records compiled by Schnabel and Seed, Jai Krishna prepared a graph to place an upper bound on PGA for Earthquakes beyond 6.7 magnitude. Further he assumed that effective PGA will be about half of actually recorded PGA. These unscientific assumptions were made for manipulating the design parameters for Tehri dam. Infact the US experts used PGA values from 0.55g to 0.89g for design of about 15 dams in USA, Casitas Embankment dam of California, 335ft, high was designed to withstand an earthquake of magnitude 6.5 and PGA of 0.55g, Auburn dam of california, 233m high was designed to withstand an earthquake of magnitude 6.5 and PGA of 0.64g on the basis of two formulations of expert groups, one by Campbell and Bozorgina and the other by Abrahamson and Silva. Actual PGA records from Northridge, Tabas, Gazli, Kobe and Taiwan Earthquakes indicate PGA values of more than 0.8g and hence prove that the contention of Jai Krishna on the upperbound for PGA is very wrong. While the US experts discarded the concept of an upper bound PGA for ground motions irrespective of the magnitude of the earthquake above 6.7 Dr.Jai Krishna stuck to this discarded concept as it serves his vested interests. Thus Dhondial Expert committee report and Jai Krishna’s report on design parameters for Tehri dam are completely misleading and detrimental to national interests.
RUSSIAN EXPERTS HAVE PREDICTED COLLAPSE OF THE TEHRI DAM: Several Russian experts stated that Tehri dam as designed is bound to collapse for several reasons.
Mr.Fink, Soviet expert stated in November 1986 that Tehri dam has been designed to withstand an earthquake of intensity 8 on the MSK or MM scale and raised it to 9 intensity which is equivalent to about 7 magnitude on the Richter scale. But the Government of India blindly believed the value of 7 magnitude fixed by all the expert committees constituted before January 1990 but revised seismicity to magnitude 8.5 recommended by the Bhumbla committee in February 1990. It means the seismicity of Tehri has been increased to intensity 11 to 12 on MSK or MM scale and according to Soviet norms the sub-structure foundations will fail and consequently the dam will collapse.
Mr.Davidov stated in January 1990 that Tehri dam was designed to withstand an intensity of 9 on the MSK or MM scale and it means as already stated above the dam fails due to an earthquake magnitude of 8.5 as accepted by the government.(Times of India, dt.8-2-1990)
Mr.Michalov another Soviet expert at Tehri dam stated in October 1991 that Tehri dam has been designed to withstand intensity 9 on MSK or MM scale and that 10 points intensity would not occur at Tehri. It again implies that the dam has sated above will collapse due to an event of magnitude 8.5, equivalent to intensity 12 on MM scale at Tehri. (Hindustan Times, dt.31-10-1991)
The Soviet experts who prepared the report entitled Tehri dam project on the Bhagirathi river in 1989 under contract No:53032/67652, Appendix-9 stated under Table No.2.3 and Table No.2.4 that for the third version pertaining to PGA (horizontal) of 0.64g and PGA (Vertical) of 1.28g the dam will fail. Infact Fig.2.19 of the report clearly shows the sketch of the dam failures pattern for version No.3. Hence the Soviet experts also predicted the impending collapse of the dam since 1986.
It is shocking to read the results of the stability analysis for Tehri dam applying accelerogram of Gazli earthquake by the Hydro Project Institute, Moscow in 1992. Surprisingly the Soviet consultants certified “The Tehri dam is seismically stable under the loading of the Gazli earthquake accelerogram for a duration of 12 seconds and this report is evidently wrong, if we consider the earlier Soviet report of 1989 on the subject.”
GAUR COMMITTEE OF EXPERTS VIRTUALLY REJECT TEHRI DAM:
Out of 5 members of the Group of Experts appointed to study seismic safety of Tehri in 1996 by the Government of India 4 experts virtually rejected the project while one expert who was Vice –Chancellor of Roorkee University which was given project consultancy supported the dam by violating the stipulation of the conditional Environmental clearance given by the Union Government and also the safety norms propounded by International Committee on Large Dams. The Group of Experts (Gaur committee of 1996)considered the safety aspects of the project. They felt that for determining seismic safety of the dam it should be ensured as per International Standards (ICOLD-57, Bulletin 46) that (a) the dam does not suffer significant damage, when subjected to OBE; and (b) damage to the dam is limited and no catastrophic failure occurs leading to uncontrolled release of water when subjected to MCE. The group further emphasized that the seismic risks of dam for earthquakes has two components (i) structural systems and components inclusive of the dam body and (ii) Socio-economic components
But unfortunately the group was allowed to make only a half hearted exercise on the seismic aspects of Tehri dam because it has made a casual study of the first component and the equally important socio-economic component was not studied. The Group made recommendation which is like the judgement pronounced in the Shakespearian drama “Merchant of Venice” where Shylock will be asked to take his pound of flesh from the body of the accused without a drop of blood. Hence the Expert Group cannot be considered to have made a comprehensive and unconditional recommendation in favour of continuing the Tehri dam because 4 out of the 5 experts have expressed a different opinion citing the Russian studies which categorically said that the Tehri dam will collapse for the earthquake impact with PGA equal to ax= 0.64g and ah=1.28g. The extract of the opinion of the 4 experts is as follows.
“Based on a review of the reports made available to the Group and further studies conducted by DEQ-UOR on the behaviour of the idealised two dimensional model of the dam to the ground acceleration corresponding MCE, the Group came to the conclusion that the present design of the dam is expected to be structurally safe to withstand the MCE during the economic performance life of the dam-reservoir system.
However, a number of crucial questions could not be settled, notably the slope stability on account of the difficulties reported in Annexure-13, and the response of the dam to MCE in the longitudinal direction. Keeping in view, therefore, of the sensitivity of non-linear behaviour to possible variations in the values of seismic parameters such as PGA, duration, frequency content and material properties, still larger displacements cannot be ruled out. Infact as per the Soviet Report (Tehri Dam Project on the Bhagirathi river, India, Contract No.53032/67652, 9,G.P.73-74) to which attention was drawn by one member of the Group, the idealised section of a 200m high dam fails for the earthquake impact with PGA equal to az =0.64g; ah=1.28g. Whereas there are differences in the sections analysed in the above report and the current design of the Tehri dam attention is drawn to the fact that for some fortuitous combination of inputs combined with particular reservoir-dam conditions the performance of the dam to hold water at a future date may get affected. It is therefore, further recommended that as a matter of abundant caution, the following work be carried out. (i) 3-D non-linear analysis of the dam to evaluate its performance against the MCE. (ii) A simulated dam break analysis to ensure that in the unlikely event of an uncontrolled release of water, the consequences are minimum.”
CASITAS EMBANKMENT DAM, VENTURA, CALIFORNIA
The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in the publication on design standards for dams presented seismic design and analysis of Casitas Embankment dam on Coyoto Creek about 6.5 miles North West of Ventura, California. The dam is 335 ft. high with a crest length of 2000ft. and crest length of 200ft. and crest width of 40ft. The foundation has sands, clay and gravels overline bedrock.
NCSDP COMMITTEE OF CENTRAL WATER COMMISSION MISUNDERSTOOD THE IMPLICATION OF THE SAFETY ASPECTS PRESENTED BY GAUR GROUP OF EXPERTS :
Unfortunately when the Gaur group of experts committee report was sent to the Central Water Commission it referred this reports to the National Standing Committee on seismic design parameters to review the report with respect to: a.) the parameters proposed for seismic safety of the Tehri dam and b) the need or otherwise to carrying out a 3-dimensional non-linear analysis of the dam against MCE. Perhaps the NCSDP was composed of general experts in civil Engineering who could influence the views of other specialists in different fields of science and hence they come to the wrong conclusions on 24-11-1998. They concluded that firstly there is no need to get the 3-dimensional non-linear analysis for Tehri dam and secondly the dam burst scenario and the disaster management for the project even though this condition was stipulated by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests in its conditional clearance. If there was any genuine expert in Civil Engineering he would have certainly argued that for dams in narrow canyons with length to height ratio being lessthan3, the response of the structures is 3-dimensional. Mejia and Seed made a comparative study of 2-dimensional and 3 dimensional dynamic analysis of the Oroville dam with length to height ratio of 7 and another hypothetical dam with length to height ratio of 2. Oroville dam was considered for earthquake parameters of magnitude 6.5 peak acceleration of 0.6g and frequency of 2.5 hertz while the second dam was considered for a magnitude of 5.7 peak acceleration 0.9g and frequency of 6.5 hertz. The effects of Canyon geometry on the dynamic response of the dam is stiffening of the system, causing higher natural frequencies of vibration for dam in narrow valleys. The study confirmed that the fundamental natural frequencies of the 3-dimensional dam model (L/H=2) were about 50% higher than those computed for the plane-strain analysis for the said earthquakes. For the Oroville dam (L/H=7). The 3-dimensional natural frequencies were 12% and 23% higher than those for the 2-dimensional model. Hence for dams with steeper canyons than the Oroville dam, it is necessary to perform 3-dimensional analysis to obtain satisfactory results for design purposes. Since Tehri dam has a steeper (L/H=2) canyons than the Oroville dam (L/H=7) 3 dimensional analysis must be made to obtain satisfactory results for design purposes. (Page 225 and 226 of Embankment dams by H.D. Sharma, Oxford and IBH, 1991). Since Dr.Nigam is reported to have opposed for 3-D Non-linear Analysis of Tehri dam and for the dambreak analysis and such views are against the standard international norms for dam safety his views must be rejected consequently the report of the group of experts must be considered as a rejection of the Tehri project.
Although the Union Ministry of Environment made it a condition for the Tehri Hydro Development Corporation to prepare a disaster management plan in consultation with the potential victims of the area it was not accordingly prepared. Hence the members of the NCSDP who refused to accept the recommendations of the Gaur group of Experts report cannot be treated as good experts as they have violated the principles of professional ethics and environmental regulations of the Union Government. NCSDP rejection of the report of Gaur committee is untenable.
GOVERNMENT SECRETARIES MISLEAD PRIME MINISTER AND THE NATION: It is much more unfortunate that most of the ecologically illiterate Secretaries to the Government who are not experts in seismology or Civil Engineering must have without raising any relevant scientific or technical questions blindly accepted the report of the so called expert committee “NCSDP” committee of the Central Water Commission. Having taken a wrong decision to accept NCSDP report, naturally the committee of senior secretaries to the Government must have misled the Prime Minister to take a blatantly wrong decision to continue work on the Tehri project which is most detrimental to public interests as already stated by the former Prime Minister Mrs.Indira Gandhi in 1979-80 itself.
Hence Tehri dam becomes a handy bomb for the terrorists to destroy North India and cause economic disaster for the whole nation. Thus Tehri dam should be scrapped or in order to save infructuous expenditure so far incurred, the dam must be treated as a run-off the river scheme to store minimum water so that even if the dam were to collapse it will not cause unbearable loss of life and properties in the downstream areas of the Ganga basin.
source--http://www.gitam.edu/cos/env/tehri/tehridam.html
for more details---http://profshivajirao.googlepages.com/tehridam
Dams on River Ganga--New York Times
Big Dam on Source of the Ganges Proceeds Despite Earthquake Fear
By BARBARA CROSSETTE
Published: September 18, 1990
LEAD: ABOUT 50 miles north of this holy city on the Ganges in the foothills of the Himalayas, Indian and Soviet engineers have begun work on one of the world's highest dams.
ABOUT 50 miles north of this holy city on the Ganges in the foothills of the Himalayas, Indian and Soviet engineers have begun work on one of the world's highest dams.
The dam's builders say the project would be ''the savior of the region,'' with major benefits for agriculture and industry, but some scientists and environmental groups warn of an almost certain future disaster, in the form of an earthquake-spawned flood, if the dam is built. Opponents have marshaled an additional list of economic, social and ecological arguments against the dam.
The builder of the 850-foot-high dam is the Tehri Hydro Development Corporation. It is a joint venture between the federal Government and Uttar Pradesh.
In a position paper intended to answer critics' charges, the corporation says the dam would not only provide needed electrical energy for a poor state, but also irrigate hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland and create a lake large enough to sustain a fishing industry and recreational facilities. Drinking water could be piped to New Delhi, which faces shortages.
''In recent years,'' the corporation says, ''there has been a growing pressure by the environmentalists to safeguard the ecological balance. Many times, however, in their zeal to preserve the environment, they tend to ignore the naked reality that in a profound way poverty is itself the greatest polluter. Economic development is quite essential for reducing poverty.''
Indian opponents of the dam are seeking the support of their Soviet counterparts in trying to stop the project. A demonstration is planned next Friday at the dam site on the Bhagirathi River, the major source of the Ganges.
''If this dam breaks, a wall of water 600 feet high will come down over Rishikesh,'' an Indian official said, reflecting a division of opinion on the dam within the Government. Some Soviet engineers are also skeptical, Indian ecologists say.
In January, a month after taking office, Prime Minister V. P. Singh promised to review the project, which he inherited from his predecessor, Rajiv Gandhi. But a committee of experts has yet to be formed, and preliminary work goes on at the site. Near a Major Fault
The most dramatic argument by scientists and engineers who oppose building the dam, near the town of Tehri, is that Tehri is likely to suffer a major earthquake sooner or later because it is in the still-active Himalayan belt, where young mountains continue to grow and the earth's crust is unstable.
N. S. Jayal, director for natural heritage at the independent Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage in New Delhi, said in an interview that Tehri is very near the main Himalayan fault line, where earthquakes of extremely high magnitude have occurred in this century - 8.6 on the Richter scale at Kangra, to the west, in 1904; 8.4 in Nepal and northern Bihar in 1934, and 8.7 in the Indian Northeast in 1950.
Tehri, said Mr. Jayal, a former Environment Ministry official and member of the national Planning Commission, is ''right in the middle of a seismic gap where pressure is building up and an earthquake has to come.''
He said that several important building specifications intended to withstand earth tremors at that site did not meet the internationally recognized safety criteria set by an American seismologist, James N. Brune of the University of Nevada at Reno.
Downstream of the dam are Rishikesh and Haridwar, two of India's holiest cities, where pilgrims come to bathe and worship by the river Indians call Ganga.
Apart from the danger of the dam collapsing, Mr. Jayal said, ''it destroys a river that is part of India's culture.'' Changing a Holy River
''The Ganga is the holiest of holy rivers,'' he said. ''People walk for hundreds of miles carrying its waters away in little brass pots. Its purity even scientists cannot explain. Its waters, coming from the glaciers, must have some minerals with purifying properties. If you dam and stagnate the water, that is finished.'' Upstream, the waters from the proposed dam would submerge not only the town of Tehri, but nearly 100 other villages. Other hamlets clinging to deforested hillsides would face the threat of landslides as waters seep into steep, denuded slopes, dam opponents say.
An additional hazard, Indian ecologists say, is that because the many feeder streams and rivers behind the dam originate in Himalayan glaciers, their waters carry a large amount of silt and rock as they tumble down toward the plains. This would quickly back up behind the dam, they say.
India has suffered a series of dam disasters over the last century in which thousands have died. Many believe these disasters, along with evidence that promised economic benefits did not materialize, should serve as warnings against hasty construction.
More generally, Indian environmental groups ask why such large dams - a leftover of independent India's early penchant for huge industrial and power projects, often built with Soviet assistance - should be considered relevant when there are more cost-effective, less disruptive alternatives. Many Indians also oppose the huge dams being constructed along the Narmada River in the central state of Madhya Pradesh.
The impending dislocation of more than 85,000 people from areas to be flooded by the Tehri dam has fostered a strong local protest movement in the Garhwal Himalaya, as this region west of Nepal is known. The movement has produced a local hero, Sunderlal Bahuguna, of the Chipko, or ''hug a tree,'' organization. His hunger strike early this year caught the attention of the new Government of Mr. Singh. A Decade in Court
A local case challenging the dam, which has been on the drawing boards for decades, went to the Supreme Court more than 10 years ago, where it is still awaiting action.
Opponents point out that a leading supporter of the dam is Mulayam Singh Yadav, a member of the Prime Minister's party and the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, the state in which Tehri is located. Uttar Pradesh would be the first to benefit from the power and water supplies. When completed, the dam is expected to produce 2,400 megawatts of electricity.
Maneka Gandhi, Prime Minister Singh's Minister of State for Environment and Forests, opposed the dam and held up work for several months before being sidelined by the appointment of a minister who outranks her and views the project more favorably.
An official in the Environment Ministry described Mrs. Gandhi, who is popular with environmental groups, as ''out of the picture now.'' He said that since more than $260 million had already been spent on the dam project, it was unlikely to be canceled.
''Once having constructed one or two major dams, you build up a bureaucracy,'' said Mr. Jayal of the Indian National Trust. ''You have engineers by the dozen appointed. They have to remain in service. They have to keep making their pile of money. So what do they do? They go from making one dam to the next dam, whether it's needed or not.''
By BARBARA CROSSETTE
Published: September 18, 1990
LEAD: ABOUT 50 miles north of this holy city on the Ganges in the foothills of the Himalayas, Indian and Soviet engineers have begun work on one of the world's highest dams.
ABOUT 50 miles north of this holy city on the Ganges in the foothills of the Himalayas, Indian and Soviet engineers have begun work on one of the world's highest dams.
The dam's builders say the project would be ''the savior of the region,'' with major benefits for agriculture and industry, but some scientists and environmental groups warn of an almost certain future disaster, in the form of an earthquake-spawned flood, if the dam is built. Opponents have marshaled an additional list of economic, social and ecological arguments against the dam.
The builder of the 850-foot-high dam is the Tehri Hydro Development Corporation. It is a joint venture between the federal Government and Uttar Pradesh.
In a position paper intended to answer critics' charges, the corporation says the dam would not only provide needed electrical energy for a poor state, but also irrigate hundreds of thousands of acres of farmland and create a lake large enough to sustain a fishing industry and recreational facilities. Drinking water could be piped to New Delhi, which faces shortages.
''In recent years,'' the corporation says, ''there has been a growing pressure by the environmentalists to safeguard the ecological balance. Many times, however, in their zeal to preserve the environment, they tend to ignore the naked reality that in a profound way poverty is itself the greatest polluter. Economic development is quite essential for reducing poverty.''
Indian opponents of the dam are seeking the support of their Soviet counterparts in trying to stop the project. A demonstration is planned next Friday at the dam site on the Bhagirathi River, the major source of the Ganges.
''If this dam breaks, a wall of water 600 feet high will come down over Rishikesh,'' an Indian official said, reflecting a division of opinion on the dam within the Government. Some Soviet engineers are also skeptical, Indian ecologists say.
In January, a month after taking office, Prime Minister V. P. Singh promised to review the project, which he inherited from his predecessor, Rajiv Gandhi. But a committee of experts has yet to be formed, and preliminary work goes on at the site. Near a Major Fault
The most dramatic argument by scientists and engineers who oppose building the dam, near the town of Tehri, is that Tehri is likely to suffer a major earthquake sooner or later because it is in the still-active Himalayan belt, where young mountains continue to grow and the earth's crust is unstable.
N. S. Jayal, director for natural heritage at the independent Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage in New Delhi, said in an interview that Tehri is very near the main Himalayan fault line, where earthquakes of extremely high magnitude have occurred in this century - 8.6 on the Richter scale at Kangra, to the west, in 1904; 8.4 in Nepal and northern Bihar in 1934, and 8.7 in the Indian Northeast in 1950.
Tehri, said Mr. Jayal, a former Environment Ministry official and member of the national Planning Commission, is ''right in the middle of a seismic gap where pressure is building up and an earthquake has to come.''
He said that several important building specifications intended to withstand earth tremors at that site did not meet the internationally recognized safety criteria set by an American seismologist, James N. Brune of the University of Nevada at Reno.
Downstream of the dam are Rishikesh and Haridwar, two of India's holiest cities, where pilgrims come to bathe and worship by the river Indians call Ganga.
Apart from the danger of the dam collapsing, Mr. Jayal said, ''it destroys a river that is part of India's culture.'' Changing a Holy River
''The Ganga is the holiest of holy rivers,'' he said. ''People walk for hundreds of miles carrying its waters away in little brass pots. Its purity even scientists cannot explain. Its waters, coming from the glaciers, must have some minerals with purifying properties. If you dam and stagnate the water, that is finished.'' Upstream, the waters from the proposed dam would submerge not only the town of Tehri, but nearly 100 other villages. Other hamlets clinging to deforested hillsides would face the threat of landslides as waters seep into steep, denuded slopes, dam opponents say.
An additional hazard, Indian ecologists say, is that because the many feeder streams and rivers behind the dam originate in Himalayan glaciers, their waters carry a large amount of silt and rock as they tumble down toward the plains. This would quickly back up behind the dam, they say.
India has suffered a series of dam disasters over the last century in which thousands have died. Many believe these disasters, along with evidence that promised economic benefits did not materialize, should serve as warnings against hasty construction.
More generally, Indian environmental groups ask why such large dams - a leftover of independent India's early penchant for huge industrial and power projects, often built with Soviet assistance - should be considered relevant when there are more cost-effective, less disruptive alternatives. Many Indians also oppose the huge dams being constructed along the Narmada River in the central state of Madhya Pradesh.
The impending dislocation of more than 85,000 people from areas to be flooded by the Tehri dam has fostered a strong local protest movement in the Garhwal Himalaya, as this region west of Nepal is known. The movement has produced a local hero, Sunderlal Bahuguna, of the Chipko, or ''hug a tree,'' organization. His hunger strike early this year caught the attention of the new Government of Mr. Singh. A Decade in Court
A local case challenging the dam, which has been on the drawing boards for decades, went to the Supreme Court more than 10 years ago, where it is still awaiting action.
Opponents point out that a leading supporter of the dam is Mulayam Singh Yadav, a member of the Prime Minister's party and the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, the state in which Tehri is located. Uttar Pradesh would be the first to benefit from the power and water supplies. When completed, the dam is expected to produce 2,400 megawatts of electricity.
Maneka Gandhi, Prime Minister Singh's Minister of State for Environment and Forests, opposed the dam and held up work for several months before being sidelined by the appointment of a minister who outranks her and views the project more favorably.
An official in the Environment Ministry described Mrs. Gandhi, who is popular with environmental groups, as ''out of the picture now.'' He said that since more than $260 million had already been spent on the dam project, it was unlikely to be canceled.
''Once having constructed one or two major dams, you build up a bureaucracy,'' said Mr. Jayal of the Indian National Trust. ''You have engineers by the dozen appointed. They have to remain in service. They have to keep making their pile of money. So what do they do? They go from making one dam to the next dam, whether it's needed or not.''
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