By Adonis, The Jabal Moussa Reserve FB Page is referring to the Adonis Valley in Nahr Ibrahim
Back in July 2013, I posted about the Janna damn and asked if it was yet another scandal in the making, given that there was a report done by The German Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources that strongly recommended not to go ahead with the construction of the planned Janneh dam. Moreover, a new report appeared recently explaining the dangers of building the Janna Dam that you can read [Here].
Having said that, Gebran Bassil, who was the Energy and Water Minister back then, decided back in 2013 to go ahead with the dam in Janna, claiming that the German report is wrong and basing himself on studies performed by Khatib & Alami, Artelia and Safege. However, the current Minister for the Environment Mohammad El Machnouk doesn’t seem convinced by Bassil’s reports and asked today the new Energy Minister to stop the Janna dam project in order to conduct further studies.
Honestly speaking, I think it’s better to put the project on hold for the time being and get different expert opinions on this matter. The new Energy minister should cooperate with the Environment Minister to form a committee of experts and take the right decision once the studies are out.
I think this summer we will all drink from our own piss to survive the shortage… and one-eye-sodded bloggers keep debating about the importance of water damns.
Machnouk ordered to stop the damn out of pure political rivalry and spite. if the damn was in Akar and ordered by a minister from the future movement would Machnouk stop it? seriously?
We should all work toward persuading the UNESCO to designate the whole area as a world heritage site.
Believe me, according to German study (if you read the article) stoping the project is for your own good. For once it has nothing to do with any politics.
Besides, it’s called Dam not Damn 😉
It is and will be a disaster, (at least most likely say 98%) there is an urgent need to study the hydrogeology of the area. The BGR report shows that the likelihood of an interconnection is immense, quasi sure.
The ministry order on infiltration test ! by far not enough to cover possible interconnection in a karstic setting as this one. Doing more test would cost a measle 200 000 $ but probably much less (say a 1/4). But even if it was double that, one would think it shouldn’t be too much to ask and actually common sense to spend that kind of money on a project that is worth around 300 million $. that would be 0.2 % of the total project value.
In Lebanon where the state has all this monet to throw around.
It might make sense to build a Dam on Jannah, but does it have to be said location. It is my understanding that other location were considered further below of the actual Dam emplacement. I am not sure about why they were not chosen, I expect that the higher elevation improved economic feasibility assessment because of the 140MW that could be generated.
One argument for the Dam ist that even if it did affect Jeita it would still provide triple the amount of water to Beirut in the summer. This argument has flaws though, because 1) it would be at best double depending on the loss at Jeita 2) losses throughout the system are still immense 3) when has the Leb gov ever implemented a project properly.
This is not an argument against dams in general just this specific project.
Hi, where can we find the Artelia environmental assessment report? Thanks !