The State has pledged to take measures to guarantee smooth navigation during the period when the Yangtze River will be closed due to the ongoing Three Gorges project, in November next year.

"We will strengthen our management of the temporary lock to ensure that transportation is accommodated during the closure,'' said Wang Jiazhu, deputy general manager of the China Yangtze Three Gorges Project Development Corp.

According to Wang, the lock, which will be the only navigation access on the Yangtze River during the period, which is designed to channel fleets with a total dead weight of 9-11 million tons a year, is currently handling transportation of 7-9 million tons.

The river closure was planned due to the start of a new-phase construction next November. A coffer dam will be built on the water diversion channel, so that workers can construct the last section of the 1900-metre-long dam on the Yangtze River and build power generators within the coffer dam.

The current water diversion channel, which was first opened for traffic in 1997 when the first river closure was launched for the dam construction, is the major navigation access at present.

In flood season and other emergencies, the Maoping dock, 1.5 kilometres upstream of the dam, is expected to help channel some of the river transport by moving it off the water and onto the land, Wang said.

Wang said the temporary lock is expected to stop navigation for 67 days in 2003 after the two sections of the dam are connected, in order to raise the water level in the reservoir to 135 metres and to put the first four generators into operation.

The shipping suspension period will go from April to June when the flow volume is most likely to exceed 12,000 cubic metres per second, the point at which the temporary lock must be closed to traffic.

During the suspension period, transportation will be channeled to roads and railways through docks near the dam.

Wang said that after the completion of the Three Gorges project, the river will be able to accommodate fleets with dead weights of up to 50 million tons, up from the current 10 million tons, and transportation costs are expected to be reduced by 35-37 percent.

(people's Daily 06/05/2001)