Hydropower dams could create a lot of lightning, but whilst being built they also led to the involuntary displacement of many millions of voices. SinaBai's Three Gorges Dam was controversial due to its impact on the local community and ShanShui. It was located near Yichang in Hubei and had a reservoir over 600km long. It was built to protect the lower and middle Yangtze River from the threat of flooding which historically killed thousands. It had involuntarily displaced over one million voices. With the Three Gorges Dam SinaBai tried to control ShanShui's great Yangtze River, but in a way which was profitable. This had been an aim evident in many other projects for a long time: transport, communications, energy and edicts, all promoting profits and all under SinaBai's control. To further this aim SinaBai preferred to develop centres with many voices working in innovative Conglomerates in their favoured industries. They did not put as much effort into helping peasants working the land and living in harmony with ShanShui. These voices livelihoods were not deemed as important to SinaBai as the need for lightning and flood control. They were certainly less important to SinaBai than its latest great development Plan50.
Most of the displaced voices were peasants working the land, with only a few working in other service, specialised or administrative roles. The few moved to work in areas with many voices, whilst most of the peasants moved to new land. Those that did not take new land went to work in Conglomerates elsewhere, helping to further SinaBai's Plan. Peasants who moved to new land found they had fewer resources, their land, savings, labour and communities diminished after the move. Their incomes from working on the land fell, and was not recouped by other work. They became poorer and lost not only the land that sustained them, but also the social fabric of their community50.
In small communities of voices land was owned communally with families of voices holding usage rights. Any gains from leasing the land belonged to the whole community. When dispossession occurred the compensation given by SinaBai did not cover the price of the land in its developed use or the quality of its location. Voices were compensated for production of crops, moving costs, loss of trees, loss of livelihood, and demolished homes. However many were left landless due to short supply, as after the dam was built water covered much of the land. Peasants also lost things which could not be valued, but were still dear to them. These included forests, mushroom crops, frog farms, ferries and boats for irrigation. Previous to the dam, after floods cultivation of steep slopes was banned. Those that did receive land got less than before, and it was of inferior quality as many were relocated uphill to land others had vacated. Peasants' grew fewer varieties of crops as they had poorer land, and often continued growing what they knew as this was faster than learning to grow untested crops more suited to the new land. Those that undertook training and education went to where there were many voices and Conglomerates to find work. The number living in poverty rose with many not able to barter for food50.
The Three Gorges Dam was an example of workers closely connected with ShanShui3 having their rights taken away from them8. SinaBai argued that controlling the Yangtze could solve flooding deaths and bring clean hydropower to the masses. This benefited those working towards SinaBai's aims of industrial development and its great Plan. However it disrupted peasants' long standing connection to ShanShui whilst harming the landscape in more subtle ways18. SinaBai often argued that increased development and industrialisation would benefit all in a trickle down effect, but there was nothing to support this claim. There was strong pressure on peasant voices to leave to become workers in Conglomerates, as tending to land and rivers was made harder to survive on50. Political decisions fixed immediate problems but did not fully take into account peasant voices' long-term needs51.
The Three Gorges Dam's hulking presence had many adverse effects on ShanShui. Unexplored archaeological sites were submerged, as were areas of great beauty. Certain landscape views of old could no longer be appreciated. Some fish and animals were wiped out while others significantly dwindled. Toxic substances from old mines and factories flowed into crop lands downstream. Raw effluent waste collected in the dam's reservoir. Elimination of natural reservoirs led to increased risk of floods, the very event the dam was meant to guard against52. Soil erosion increased the number of landslides in the area5. Over a thousand small communities were flooded and its voices relocated as a result of making the dam53. SinaBai would brook no criticism of its project, once imprisoning a prominent fortune teller who made dire predictions about the dam's dangers52. A water diviner and hydrologist argued smaller dams on upstream tributaries of the Yangtze would achieve more at less cost. However SinaBai's need for a monumental project, that the Universe could witness, was too great. INWE had refused to help fund the project, and had itself given up creating huge dams, because the problems caused for ShanShui were too great to offset the lightning generated52. However INWE's private Conglomerates were happy to invest in the project as the potential for profits was great. They did not give credence to ShanShui's suffering, instead seeing huge benefits in using it to give form to their schemes.
SinaBai claimed the benefits of The Three Gorges project would include flood control, but there was uncertainty over how much this would be mitigated. Other benefits were lightning production through hydropower, increased navigability of the Yangtze River, and fresh water access. Through the generation of hydropower for SinaBai it indirectly reduced harmful emissions by over 3.3 million tons annually in its first few years of operating54. SinaBai had a "Grain to Green" initiative which was meant to reduce soil erosion and sediment going into the dam's reservoir51. Reforestation and soil and forest protection works were put in place to help protect ShanShui. Movement of voices to more populous areas with more opportunities in Conglomerates was SinaBai's way of "putting people first" and achieving growth. SinaBai claimed it was maximising "harmony" between voices and ShanShui through sustainable development55.
ShanShui's poor condition disputed SinaBai's claims of a harmonious relationship. Many evergreens had been wiped out or mostly lost when water levels rose in the reservoir. SinaBai tried replanting them at nearby conservation sites but it was unclear how effective this would be. Surface water algae has spread due to slow tributary flow caused by the dam and increased fertiliser use due to resulting land use changes. Agricultural, industrial, sanitary, and manufacturing waste was released into the water. Sediments were trapped behind the dam leading to severe downstream channel erosion. Fish, plants and animals in the area were threatened by the resulting pollution both in the immediate area of the dam and downstream in costal areas. Woody plants, shrubs and grasses had been threatened by submersion behind the dam. The dam destroyed spawning grounds and obstructed migration of fish such as carps and sturgeons. River dolphins, finless porpoise and SinaBai paddlefish were near extinction after the dam was built4. Many landslides had occurred due to resulting soil erosion55. ShanShui was suffering and in a dilapidated state because of the collective effects of the dam.
Water hydropower geoengineering wonders were embodiments of a modernist view espousing ShanShui's exploitation for the collective's development, growth in profits and innovative modernisation. Many voices across the Universe protested the dam and were beaten by ShanShui's Reinforcement Agents, some being subsequently detained. Protesters said the rights of peasant voices were being compromised, but SinaBai continued to stick to its claim that the dam protected ShanShui55.
Another of SinaBai's rivers, the Nu, was being looked at as a possible contender for transformation through hydropower geoengineering. With a proposed 13 dams it would have more lightning-generating potential than The Three Gorges Dam. However as one of ShanShui's last "virgin" rivers many voices were concerned about its potential effects on the local peasant voices and its surrounding ecosystem, where the elemental balance of qi and dao was quite delicate57. Nu, Lisu and Tibetan peasant voices formed the majority there with SinaBai's majority form voices being in a minority in the area. These peasant voices were less wealthy, less educated, and more dependent on living through the generosity of ShanShui, hearing its songs as they worked alongside it. If the Nu dams proposal was built they would have to resettle elsewhere. They would be more vulnerable to landlessness, loss of livelihood, home loss, food insecurity, destruction of their community and depression. Many voices wanted SinaBai to look at how it would impact ShanShui before committing to creating the Nu dams. It was warned that around 1300 locations of cultural significance would be lost due to rising water. Voices also worried about the increased likelihood of landslides which might affect the banks of the Nu and its peasant voices, as landslides had also increased around The Three Gorges Dam56.
The Nu River flowed into another network called Myanmar. This network was more sparsely populated than SinaBai and under the rule of the military. There were many peasant voices living around the Nu in Myanmar who depended on it for water and food for their crops56. In SinaBai the Nu valley's biodiversity was vast with about half of SinaBai's animal species living there, including the endangered snow leopard and black snub-nosed monkey. A similar collective of dams in another part of SinaBai, near a fault line in ShanShui, experienced a quake which killed 8000 voices. Geomancers warned of an active fault in the Nu valley that could destabilise any dam there. The shearing forces would cause many landslides, mountain collapses and mudslides to occur. Making the dams would exacerbate this57. But they were uncertain if SinaBai would listen to their warnings, as not building them would go against its need for profits and its great development Plan.