Alarms and controversy over a new attempt to declare an emergency to protect Coca Codo Sinclair from regressive erosion

The recommendation of director of the Executive Commission of the Coca River, Vicente Bayardo Ramírez Maldonado, who made him this December 22 to the current manager of Celec, Nicolás Andrade Laborde, to declare an emergency in the contracting of construction works and its supervision of a “permeable dam”, in order to slow down the regressive erosion of the Coca River, raised alarms and controversy in the electricity sector. This, although -according to official Celec sources- it is a recommendation that has not yet received the approval of the general management.

The The regressive erosion of the Coca River is a phenomenon that, in addition to having affected towns in the sector in previous months and having destroyed sections of the oil pipelines (SOTE and OCP), constantly threatens to reach the collection works of the most important hydroelectric plant in Ecuador: Coca Codo Sinclair. However, a possible declaration of emergency had already been ruled out by the Minister of Energy, Fernando Santos Alvite, who expressly asked Andrade not to proceed with said declaration. On November 18, the minister sent a communication to Andrade Laborde in the sense that a serious complaint had arrived at his office on a possible declaration of emergency due to the natural catastrophe of the regressive erosion of the Coca River, “The purpose of which is to authorize and delegate to the director of the Río Coca Executive Commission the contracting of emergency purchases, without limit of amount, in an abrupt manner and without a clean, transparent and competitive process.” According to Santos, these attitudes are not compatible with the government’s transparency policy.

For this reason, the request for an emergency declaration is read from several angles. One of them is that the current authorities could be seeking to make an emergency declaration irregularly, when it is not really necessary.

Since The Ministry of Energy was informed that these “are last minute actions of an administration that is about to leave” and they consider that if they do so they will not have time to freely use the resources in the emergency. “Soon there will be a new Celec manager who will look calmly at the problem. There is no urgency that justifies millionaire hires by hand”.

In any case, in your letter of December 22, Ramírez Maldonado indicates to the manager Andrade the arguments to make said declaration.

• The regressive erosion phenomenon presented in the Coca river basin has a high possibility of affecting the operations of Coca Codo in two of its main components, the catchment through regressive erosion and the discharge through progressive sedimentation.
• The erosive phenomenon has been studied by the Technical Subcommittees of the CERC, for which solution designs have been proposed to mitigate and slow down the advance of erosion that can reach the catchment area, as well as affect the discharge area.
• The designs and solutions proposed must be urgently implemented in the current dry season, considering that extraordinary flows may occur next winter that could trigger imminent and unexpected erosion.
• Erosion to date has reached 7.7 kilometers, where the loss of alluvial ridges and the deepening of the channel are already observed, so it is recommended to take action
• Studies and technical considerations indicate that a permeable dam should be built downstream.
• The construction of the pervious dam has the final designs in which the recommendations of the US Army Corps of Engineers, made on September 8, have been included.
• Executing the work within the current dry season would allow it to be executed in 240 days, since in rainy weather it could extend its execution up to 360 days and would mean an approximate increase in its cost of 25%.
• The cost of the work is $20 million, an amount that would be recovered in approximately 23 days, considering the potential annual losses that would occur due to electricity generation.

The erosion front that was located at kilometer 7.9 downstream until the first days of December remained so for 504 days. However, a daily monitoring report on December 4, 2022 indicated that it has advanced 200 meters, as it is currently located at 7.7 kilometers. In this sense, the director of the Commission has indicated that they must take immediate actions to control this phenomenon in time, to prevent erosion from reaching the catchment of the Coca Codo Sinclair hydroelectric plant in a short time, which also predicts that “if it arises a flood event that exceeds 3,000 m3/s would produce catastrophic and unexpected effects of unpredictable consequences”.

The controversy appears in the midst of negotiations that are being carried out so that the Chinese construction company Sinohydro take over the operation. This, after until now Ecuador has not received the asset because it has presented 17,999 cracks in its distributors. This is a very complex problem because the distributors are the heart of the plant and there is no fast or low-cost formula to remedy the problem. (YO)