Just Water Allocation in the Dulcepamba Watershed
Current Reflections - Floods
Sometimes at night during an especially heavy rain we hear the low rumbles and claps of thunder… But it’s not coming from the sky; it is the sound of massive boulders tumbling down the Dulcepamba River as water from the entire watershed collects and rushes down the channel past the little town of San Pablo de Amalí.
The town of San Pablo de Amalí and the San José del Tambo Hydroelectric Project during the dry season. Ours is the white (gray) house to the right of the teal painted house. You can see Hidrotambo's intake works, canal, and spillway behind it.
On the night of March 19, 2015, a flood devastated the town of San Pablo de Amali. It washed away more than 10 hectares of cultivated farmland, 8 houses, and took the lives of 2 women and a child.
The town, founded in 1960, sits on a hill above the Dulcepamba River and had never flooded, even in the heaviest of rains, in all of its 55 years. Some believe that the high flows that night were an “extraordinary natural event”. However, based on a hydrologic model created by the University of California, Davis Center for Watershed Sciences using data both we and the Ecuadorian Government collected over the past 50 years, the flow that night has a 6 year recurrence interval. In other words, there is a 16.6% chance that the same level of water will flow down the Dulcepamba River every year.
…So why the devastating flood?
Our studies show that there are two compounding reasons:
1. When Hidrotambo built the intake works of the San José del Tambo Hydroelectric Project in 2013 on the Dulcepamba, they diverted the river 120 meters closer to the town of San Pablo de Amalí, narrowing the river channel, and angling it towards the lower part of the town.
2. Anticipating damages to their works from high flows, Hidrotambo built a large rock pile just upstream of their intake works, so that high flows would be directed away from their canal, but as a consequence towards the town.
2014 - Hidrotambo's bulldozer building the loose rock pile to protect their intake works from high flows. You can also see the floodgate sticking up in the background.
2015 Satellite image of the area around San Pablo de Amalí. The light blue line represents the original main channel of the Dulcepamba River. The dark blue line shows the diverted channel, which runs 120m closer to the town.
While the first heavy rain was falling, during the second rainy season after Hidrotambo built their project, Manuel Trujlllo, President of the Community of San Pablo de Amalí, along with several other community members, stood on the bank high above the Dulcepamba River, watching the river rise. The clock struck midnight and they watched as, little by little, the river displaced the loose rock pile Hidrotambo had built to protect their works. According to Trujillo and other eye-witnesses, the rocks started to get stuck a little further downstream where Hidrotambo had narrowed the channel. Within minutes, the rocks had built up so much that they blocked the channel. Because Hidrotambo had closed the floodgate meant to keep high flows from rushing into their canal, the rocks and floodgate formed a complete channel blockage, according to the eye witnesses.
The blockage held for 20 minutes as more than 19 million gallons of water amassed. Then when the pressure was too great, the water broke through the blockage with a resounding CRACK and inundated the lower part of the town in huge waves, taking the belongings of 8 families, including their homes, clothes, furniture, and legal documents. The water also washed away portions of the road out of town and fields of carefully cultivated oranges, bananas, timber, and cacao—the livelihoods of many of the San Pablo de Amalí community members.
March 20, 2015 - The cement patio and part of a cinder block wall in front of where the Trujillo's house was situated just hours before. Their house and all of their possessions fell into the river below, as the land beneath it was undercut by the wall of water that was released when the blockage broke.
Most of the people in the lower part of the town escaped to higher ground before the blockage broke, but Glenda Cuji Pala, 23, Carmen Dorila Quinatoa, 27, and her son, Mauricio Elkin Albuja Quinatoa, 8, found themselves trapped and perished, unable to reach dry ground. The next day a helicopter was brought in to look for their bodies.
March 20, 2015 - The helicopter that came in to look for the bodies of those killed in the flood.
The remains of the house where Glenda Cuji Pala was trapped and drowned. (Photo taken in November 2016)
Fast forward almost two years to the night of Saturday, February 11, 2017.
11am February 11, 2017 - The four meter stream gage and Emily Conrad on the cable system we built the week before to cross and measure the Dulcepamba River just above Hidrotambo's intake works.
It had been raining hard since about 3:30 in the afternoon and the river was rising again. Dulcepamba Team members Darwin Paredes and Emily Conrad, along with several others from town had installed a stream gage and cable system with which to measure the Dulcepamba River just above Hidrotambo's intake works the week before. The system had withstood some fairly high flows earlier in the week, but we ran out to check on it to see if there was anything we could do to reinforce it. Just as we reached the bank of the river at dusk in the pouring rain, we watched as torrents of water carrying heavy boulders demolished all our hard work within seconds. At that point we knew the town was in trouble again.
When the Trujillos and Laura Garcia lost their homes in the flood of March 2015, the Prefectura (provincial government) built them each new houses, but sited them very poorly. They were built immediately adjacent to where their original houses had been, abutting the cliff that had been undercut by the flood of 2015.
Since the flood of 2015, Hidrotambo had piled more loose rock between the main river channel and the cliff where the new houses were situated, as supposed protection for the town. From experience, we knew that the rock walls would not hold, and there was a very good chance that the channel would be blocked again, and/or the river would undercut the cliff, yet again, threatening to undermine the rebuilt houses.
So, we ran down to the Trujillo’s house. Manuel Trujillo’s wife, Gioconda Quito and daughter-in-law, Martha Cobos, were holding each other crying, overcome with the thought that they might lose their home and all their possessions again. They pulled it together and we sloshed in the dark through the small river that had formed in their driveway, carrying all their belongings out of the house and putting them on a small covered platform where their driveway meets the road.
Don Manuel’s grandchildren, Jean Carlos, 6, and Domenica, 5, stood shivering on the platform where the family’s possessions were being collected. They each had very different reactions to what was happening: Jean Carlos was talking a mile a minute about everything from his Superman action figure to a cartoon show he saw on TV, and pretending to answer a cellphone and describing to the police what was happening around him. Domenica was quiet. She held her doll close and then when I (Emily) stopped to drop off yet another garbage bag full of clothes, she asked me in a small voice “but where are we going to live now?”.
When we had emptied most of the contents of the small cinderblock house, we went to the edge of the cliff where the Trujillo’s old house had been. We watched as the raging river demolished the 2.5 meter loose rock wall that Hidrotambo had built to protect the town in one fell swoop. It was like watching a child’s sandcastle melt into the sea. Now there was nothing between the raging river and the cliff where the houses were perched. We ran back into the house for the bed frames and the refrigerator, which were all that was left.
Dry season, November 2016 - View from the riverbed looking upstream. You can see the 2.5 meter loose rock wall Hidrotambo built, and the houses of San Pablo de Amalí on the cliff behind it. These houses were more than 120 meters from the riverbed before the March 2015 flood.
Jean Carlos and Domenica Trujillo in their grandfather's truck
February 12, 2017 - All of the Trujillo's belongings on the covered platform on their driveway. Their house is behind the people in the driveway.
February 12, 2017 - Manuel Trujillo standing in the wreckage of the flood of the night before.
As Don Manuel commented as we were rushing things out of his house, and as we later confirmed with the meteorological data we collected, it rained much more that night than the night of the March 2015 flood.
February 12, 2017 - What was left of Hidrotambo's rock wall built to protect the town. It was completely abolished further downstream.
February 14, 2017 - Looking downstream at the floodplain several days after the flood.
February 14, 2017 - The river, which had relocated in the only road out of town. On the right bottom you can see the top of a telephone pole and downed wires in the rapids. On the left you can see an eroded hillside that had been a banana and cacao farm.
Water rushing down one of the tributaries to the Dulcepamba River took out the bridge next to Laura Garcia’s Prefectura-built house, leaving her (new) house partially hanging off a cliff. It also completely abolished the house of Martin Cabezas Alban, a severely mentally disabled man who lived alone. Martin now must rely upon friendly neighbors for food and a place to sleep, and spends the rest of his time wandering the hills.
Thankfully, there was no river blockage and no one was killed this time, but each time the rain comes down hard and we can hear the boulders thundering down the riverbed, fear of what could happen permeates this community.
February 14, 2017 - In the foreground is the bridge over the San Pablo de Amalí River that collapsed the night of February 11. Community members built a temporary footbridge to cross. In the background is what was left of Laura Garcia's (new) house. Her original house was destroyed in the March, 2015 flood. To the left, just out of frame is the Dulcepamba River.
So what are we doing about it?
When Rachel Conrad worked with the Community of San Pablo de Amalí to form the Dulcepamba Project in 2013, it was conceived as water availability and water needs study, designed to help inform water use planning and ensure that small-scale farmers’ Water Rights are upheld. She never considered the repercussions of the poorly sited and constructed hydroelectric project during high flows. But, as of the flood in 2015, the Dulcepamba Project has expanded its mandate to collect and analyze data to better understand:
1. What were the root causes and influences that led to the devastating flood(s).
2. What are the risks of something like these happening again.
Over the past year we have worked with the University of California, Davis Center for Watershed Sciences to build a hydraulic model that can:
1. Simulate what would have happened if various volumes of water came down the river in different conditions including:
- The actual conditions the night of March 19, 2015
- The conditions pre-river diversion and hydro project construction
2. Simulate what might happen in the future with various levels of flow, i.e., flood risk.
A screenshot of one of the early iterations of UC Davis graduate student Jeanette William's 2D hydraulic model overlaid on a post 2015 flood satellite image of the area around San Pablo de Amalí and Hidrotamo's intake works.
These models are being used to inform complaints to government ministries and court cases that the people of San Pablo de Amalí are bringing against Hidrotambo and the Ecuadorian State for not enforcing laws around adequate consultation or protection of the community.
What’s the current status?
In response to several complaints that the Community of San Pablo de Amalí and their downstream neighbors presented to the Ministry of the Environment (16 to be exact), the Ministry has ordered Hidrotambo to:
1. Remove the loose pile of rocks upstream of their intake works.
2. Redo their Environmental Management Plan, including an analysis of what new environmental impacts or risks would be created by removing the loose rock piles.
3. Develop a flood contingency plan that includes the safety of the San Pablo de Amalí community, based on community consultation and approval.
Hidrotambo has yet to comply.
From left to right: UC Davis Professor, William Fleenor, Environmental Analyst, Rachel Conrad, and Human Rights lawyer, Nathaly Yepez in front of the Organization of American States in Washington, DC, where the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights is housed
Additionally, we have submitted the results from our models as part of a Precautionary Measures case currently pending in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. The Commission has requested information from the State (Ecuador) defending why they haven’t enforced their laws concerning flood risk. This puts a lot more pressure on the State agencies to hold Hidrotambo accountable.
On May 23, 2017, Rachel Conrad, Nathaly Yepez, lawyer from the Quito-based human rights legal group, INREDH, and Dr. William Fleenor, professor and Professional Research Engineer at the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences, met with the Commission to review the status of the Precautionary Measures case. In the meeting, Dr. Fleenor presented the results of the hydrologic and hydraulic models produced by the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences, which reinforce the grave danger to San Pablo de Amalí resulting from Ecuador's and Hidrotambo's failure to comply with the law.
Whereas the Commission often only sets 20 minutes for these type of meetings, it gave our team more than an hour and asked many detailed questions, showing the Commission’s strong interest in the case. At the end of the meeting the Commission told our team that they would deliberate on the case within several weeks.
Look out for more updates and stories and in the coming weeks, and as always, please ask us questions, share any advice or resources you have, donate to our effort, and let us know what you'd like to hear more about.
The Dulcepamba Team