BEIJING, Nov. 15 (Xinhua) -- The environmental impact of China's Three Gorges dam has been less damaging than feared, a high-ranking Chinese official said on Thursday.

    Speaking exclusively to Xinhua, Wang Xiaofeng, director of the office of the Three Gorges Project Committee of the State Council, said that "the (environmental) problems (of the dam), including landslides, trapped silt and algae blooms, did not go beyond the scope predicted by the feasibility report in 1991, and in some aspects, they are even less severe than predicted."

    "We are able to allow more silt than the designed volume to get through the dam, and no major geological disasters or related casualties have happened in the reservoir area since the water level was raised to 156 meters last year."

    "Some algae blooms did happen, but only temporarily in tributaries, and the main body of the water is kept above grade three as before," he said.

    Relocation of 1,570 businesses and 190,000 residents away from the reservoir has led to a substantial decrease in the amount of pollutants discharged, he added.

    "We are obliged and also able to control spending, ensure safe operation, conserve the environment and help displaced residents settle down and get rich," he pledged.

    Wang was speaking in the wake of a forum held in Wuhan in September to examine environmental problems caused by the dam.

    "Problems, including pollution, landslides, trapped silts and clean water discharge, merit our close attention," Wang said, but he also argued some of the problems existed long before the dam, and are manageable with effective measures.

    The Three Gorges area, sitting among brittle terrain in the heart of China, has recorded several major landslides in the past decades, in which debris flows pushed rocks, houses and even a whole town into the Yangtze River, sinking boats and blocking waterways.

    In 2001, two years before the dam started to hold water, 79 people were killed after a landslide swept over an apartment building in Wulong County, about 620 kilometers upstream from the dam.

    Wang said the dam may have increased chances of cave-ins and landslides, and his office is still taking measures, including reforestation, cementing rock structures, and "peeling" away fertile soils from periodically submerged areas, to ward against potential disasters.

    In further attempts to dispel worries, Wang said monitoring facilities have not detected signs of earthquakes caused by the huge reservoir. "Frequency and intensity of earthquakes remain similar now to those before the dam, posing no threat so far," he said.

    Wang asserted that he is fully alert and engaged in preventive measures to put the damages and risks in check. "Although the engineering part of the project is about to reach completion, the environment protection work still has a long way to run," he said.

Three Gorges reservoir area last county seat demolished

CHONGQING, Nov. 15 (Xinhua) -- The last county seat to be inundated by water in the Three Gorges reservoir, which is set to rise to a mark of 175 meters, was demolished at 3 p.m. on Thursday. Full story