THE JALAUR River for the People’s Movement (JRPM) takes note of the National Irrigation Administration’s I(NIA) response defending the safety of the Jalaur Dam.
But declaring the dam “safe” and citing a “3x safety factor,” geological checks and real-time monitoring do not end the discussion. When the lives and communities downstream are at stake, assurances must be backed by evidence that the public can scrutinize.
History warns against treating dam safety declarations as gospel truth. Major dams have failed despite being engineered, inspected, and designed to withstand anticipated hazards.
The Teton Dam in the United States catastrophically failed in June 1976, releasing a massive flood that devastated downstream communities.
In October 1963, the Vajont disaster in Italy demonstrated even more starkly how underestimated geological hazards can turn a reservoir into a deadly force, when a massive landslide plunged into the reservoir and generated a devastating wave downstream.
While no one wants the constructed Jalaur Dam to repeat Teton or Vajont, those disasters establish one fundamental principle: engineering standards are not a guarantee that every risk has been identified, eliminated, or adequately managed.
What is particularly disturbing is NIA’s repeated and seemingly absolute declaration that the Jalaur Dam is “safe,” as though it can control every equipment failure, earthquake, geological movement, extreme rainfall or climate change-triggered events.
NIA does not control nature, and will never be able to. The public should not be asked to blindly believe an agency’s assurances when lives and entire communities are at stake.
When the consequences of failure could be catastrophic, safety must be demonstrated through transparency and independent scrutiny, continuous monitoring, and credible emergency preparedness.
We challenge NIA: Show us the evidence. Publish the complete geological and geotechnical assessments, the dam-break and extreme-flood modelling, the safety calculations behind the claimed “3x” factor, the real-time monitoring parameters and thresholds, the downstream inundation maps, and the Emergency Action Plan.
Allow independent experts and affected communities to examine them. – JOHN IAN ALENCIAGA, coordinator, Jalaur River for the People’s Movement <jrpm.panay2013@gmail.com>
