In the midst of the push and pull due to times and tests so that Hidroituango can turn on its first two units, President Gustavo Petro put a condition on Wednesday to EPM for the premiere of the future megaproject hydroelectric.
The president said on his Twitter account: “Before turning on any turbine in Hidroituango the population at risk must be evacuated as a precautionary measure, which is a universal principle. In the government of change for life, life comes first”.
Mayor Daniel Quintero responded to Petro 27 minutes later: “This is how it will be done, Mr. President. We hope to be successful in the next PMU on these measures and, especially, regarding the additional time requested to carry out the tests without being sanctioned.”
The times to turn on Hidroituango prior to November 30, the term in which EPM’s commitment expires, At this point, neither the Government of Antioquia, nor the Company that owns the megaproject, nor EPM itself.
Although President Petro did not give details on how and who should comply with the requirement made to Medellin’s Public Companies, the director of the National Unit for Disaster Risk Management, Javier Pava, reported that on November 5, next Saturday, A PMU will be held in Puerto Valdivia from which the first guidelines will surely emerge to define the route to follow.
With time running out to meet the deadline stipulated for the start-up of the project, in that PMU they will review the “response plan and preventive evacuation protocol for the population exposed to risk scenarios during the transition stage between the completion of construction and entry in operation” of Hidroituango, according to Pava.
This Tuesday it became very clear with the request that Governor Aníbal Gaviria made to the National Government to gain time before the Energy and Gas Regulation Commission (Creg), in addition to the statements made by Javier Darío Toro, legal representative of the company, in the debate of political control that faced the project in the Assembly.
The president, addressing President Gustavo Petro, asked him to intercede with the Creg so that the entry into operation of units 1 and 2 is done without effort, once the required tests are completed. “I very politely ask you to negotiate with the Creg so that the operation of Hidroituango can take place within a reasonable time, without EPM having economic consequences,” he said.
The president seeks to throw a lifeline to the company. The sanction of 190 million dollars would fall on this in case of non-compliance with the agreed schedule, in addition to the loss of the reliability charge, which would represent a value close to 65 million dollars over 18 years
President Petro’s demand is in line with the requirements of the project’s Disaster Risk Management Plan, which has identified two critical risk scenarios.
The first of these is a possible failure of the dam caused by spillway problems, or by the response of the massif following it came into operation, among others, which can generate a flow of 368,000 cubic meters per second (m3/s).
The second scenario is the unblocking of the Right Tunnel, which can generate a flow of 8,000 m3/s. This scenario is more likely than the failure of the dam, since its definitive plugging has not been completed 100%, according to the National Risk Management Unit.
As the management plan prioritizes the most critical scenario for the preparation of the response of the communities located downstream, that is, scenario 1 of 368,000 m3/s, The Unit reported that the municipalities must carry out the drills with the times of the alerts for the evacuation to the identified meeting points.
“This is fundamental for the preparation of the response and especially when it comes to a type of technological risk that will be there during the entire useful life of the project (expected for 50 years)”, reported the Unit.
EPM has indicated that is carrying out the necessary tests before going into operation to give a safety factor to the communities located downstream.
“In that sense, if tests must be carried out to guarantee or provide a greater safety factor for the start of operation of the project, it is EPM who must ensure compliance with these principles so as not to put the communities at riskecosystems and social infrastructure located downstream of the IHP”, concluded the Unit.