Heavy siltation has also taken its toll on the lifespan of the two dams, both of which were originally meant to function for 50 years. Today, the 75 MW Ambuklao has been reduced to a single generator operating at less than 20 MW. Binga continues to operate at its 100-MW capacity but at the high cost of dredging operations to rehabilitate its reservoir. Even the NPC acknowledged these "relatively high sediment yield rates" in its siltation study of Agno in 1999, and which it also estimates will be even greater with the San Roque dam.

Then there are the warnings issued by the likes of Dr. Sergio Feld, an environmental expert on natural resources policy and management. Feld says the possible accretion of mine tailings acknowledged in the EIA effectively renders the project as a large tailings dam. Mine tailings discharges, according to EIA estimates, account for 93 million cubic meters of sediment accumulation in the reservoir over its lifespan. Other sources are river sediment transport (136 mcm) and deposits released from Binga (46 mcm). Three mines—Sto. Tomas II of Philex Mining Corp., the gold mines of Benguet Corp., and Itogon of Itogon-Suyoc Mines—currently operate within the San Roque dam watershed whose tailings dams are built along tributaries of the Agno River.

The presence of mine wastes can only do damage to local waters, points out Dr. Robert Moran, who has done extensive studies on water quality, geochemical and hydrogeologic work. He says the dam has the potential to create an environment within the impounded waters that may increase dissolved concentrations of chemicals known to be highly metal-laden. Such chemical constituents may include iron, zinc, lead, mercury, selenium, cadmium, molybdenum, arsenic, copper, nickel and even radioactive materials like uranium and cyanide compounds.

Moran says these concentrations could make the reservoir and downstream river toxic to sensitive fish species and impair the development of proposed reservoir fisheries. For the water to be suitable for irrigation and human consumption, an active—and expensive—water treatment facility is necessary.

As to the flood control function of the reservoir, Dr. Peter Willing of the U.S. firm Water Resources Consulting says the reservoir is designed to contain only fairly small floods that its operation in an emergency may cause even worse floods than what naturally occur. He cites the EIA's own admission of the reservoir's vulnerability to mismanagement with respect to flood routing that could result in a severe flooding of the whole Pangasinan and most of Tarlac plains.

Grifoni shares Willing's assessment, observing that the reservoir will likely have insufficient storage for water resulting from major storm and flood events as it will always be filled at maximum capacity for power and irrigation purposes. Both Grifoni and Willing likewise find no adequate flood forecasting system, flood warning system or community preparedness and evacuation plan.

John Lockwood, Sithe resident manager, dismisses the findings as being made on the basis of incomplete information. "What we're doing is what we believe the government of the Philippines wants us to do. We're here because somebody asked us to come and do it. It's for the benefit of your country," Lockwood insists.

He says Raytheon guarantees that the dam design can withstand an earthquake of the same scale. With its flood-control component, Lockwood says the dam is designed to contain the materials that come down for at least 50 years, probably even up to 90 years. The reservoir, he says, has an outlet halfway up with a dead storage below and a live storage above that allows water upstream out, with the sediments being retained.

"We'll be living here to operate the dam for 25 years. We don't want anything that will cause us and the people any trouble," he asserts.

THE FAMILIES who have been forced to leave—or are about to leave—the villages of their forefathers may find such words laughable. So far, the dam project has displaced a total of 762 families from barangays San Felipe East and West in this municipality, and San Manuel and Itogon in Benguet, Mt. Province. All have been condemned to resettlement sites or some place else, where the opportunities for sustenance and livelihood are less than when they were in their former villages.

For many from Sitio Bolangit here in San Nicolas, self-relocation is looking less painful than resettlement. Among others, they find living in a resettlement site—albeit furnished with installed electricity and water supply facility—alien and restricting. Arrangements under the Resettlement Action Plan (RAP) of the SRPC consist only of a grant of a 33-square-meter house on a 200-square-meter lot and a disturbance compensation of P7,500. Added to this is the fact that the resettlement site is unlikely to be available for full occupancy by December, the deadline for their evacuation of Bolangit.

Yet self-relocation is not without its own difficulties, the situation aggravated by SRPC and NPC's unfulfilled promises. Less than two months before their evacuation deadline, Bolangit residents were still waiting to be finally compensated for their lands, crops and other improvements with respect to right-of-way acquisitions for the dam project. All they had received then was the stipulated financial assistance of P17,000 per household and payment for their houses and structures.

"We've been waiting three years for them to fulfill their promises," Rodolfo Albay, a 55-year-old farmer laments. "The agreement was, even before the project began, we'd be compensated. But that wasn't to be."

Bolangit folks also complain about the way the NPC made an undervalued appraisal of their crops, plants and trees. Full-grown mahogany and fruit-bearing trees like mango, for instance, were pegged at only P16 each. The same trees fetched the actual NPC valuation price of P450 and P800, respectively, for San Manuel residents. Computations for payments to crops like rice and coffee were also based on a single harvest per year formula, instead of the regular three croppings annually.

Cesar Rigonan can't help but suspect the state power firm of bias and malice. He says, "They were probably employing delaying tactics so they could quote a lower price for our crops. They already did a survey in 1997, and the prices were much higher then." He adds that following up on their claims is as much an ordeal as they are made to go back and forth to the NPC field office without the assurance of finally getting paid.

Rigonan, who along with other Bolangit folk derives income from panning gold in the Agno River, is also dissatisfied with the offer of livelihood to compensate for their loss. He would rather that the SRPC pays them for foregone earnings from gold-panning.

Apparently exasperated by the continuing deluge of criticisms and complaints, Sithe's Lockwood has been driven to ask at one point: "Then what's the alternative? Tell us a better way and we'll do it."

The Berne Declaration's suggestion to the hydro industry: new energy opportunities like high-efficiency gas energy generation to truly renewable technologies—wind, solar and mini-hydro. Its study also points to a poor growth outlook for the industry—a mere four percent a year worldwide for the period 1990-2020—especially compared to the renewable energy sector, which has been growing at 10-20 percent annually.

With the country proving vulnerable to price fluctuations of imported energy like oil, even the Department of Energy has seen the wisdom of increasing energy self-sufficiency by tapping new and renewable energy (NRE) for its rural electrification programs. Along with geothermal, hydro, coal and natural gas, NRE now supply 43 percent of the country's total requirements.

In the short term, wind energy is the most promising of the renewables. A wind resource assessment completed last year finds 47 provinces in the country with at least 500 MW of wind potential while 25 have at least 1,000 MW.

The way it looks now, however, it may still take a while before governments and the hydro industry come to terms with the fact that mega hydropower projects—the San Roque dam included—amount to no more than anachronisms in this day and age.