From The Washington Post (link):
After 13 years of breakneck construction that displaced more than a million villagers, China is about to pour the final concrete on an enormous dam across the mighty Yangtze River, seeking to tame the flood-prone waterway that has nurtured and tormented the Chinese people for 5,000 years.
But critics of the project — they are many, in China and abroad — have questioned whether building a giant dam is really scientific in the 21st century, when the United States and other nations are weighing the wisdom of damming their rivers. Despite the $24 billion price tag, they note, the Three Gorges Dam (‰∏âÂ≥°Â§ßÂùù)will produce only 2 percent of China’s electricity by 2010. Moreover, environmentalists have warned that the backup of water behind the dam could end up as a giant waste-collection pool for Chongqing, China’s largest urban conglomeration about 250 miles upstream.
See also “China’s controversial Three Gorges Dam nears finish” by Reuters (link) and “Three Gorges dam: Fact box” from Three Gorges Probe (link); – “China marks completion of Three Gorges Dam” by The washington Post (link)