Bui Dam

The Bui Dam is a 400-megawatt (540,000 hp) hydroelectric project in Ghana. It is built on the Black Volta river at the Bui Gorge, at the southern end of Bui National Park. The project was a collaboration between the government of Ghana and Sino Hydro, a Chinese state-owned construction company. Construction on the main dam began in December 2009. Its first generator was commissioned on 3 May 2013, and the dam was inaugurated in December of the same year. Bui is the second largest hydroelectric generating plant in the country after the Akosombo Dam. The reservoir flooded about 20% of the Bui National Park and impacted the habitats for the rare black hippopotamus as well as a large number of wildlife species. It required the resettlement of 1,216 people, and affected the lives and livelihoods of many more.

The Bui hydro-electric dam had first been envisaged in 1925 by the British-Australian geologist and naturalist Albert Ernest Kitson when he visited the Bui Gorge. The dam had been on the drawing board since the 1960s, when Ghana's largest dam, the Akosombo Dam, was built further downstream on the Volta River. By 1978 planning for the Bui Dam was advanced with support from Australia and the World Bank. However, four military coups stalled the plans. At the time Ghana began to be plagued by energy rationing, which has persisted since then. In 1992, the project was revived and a first feasibility study conducted by the French firm Coyne et Bellier.

In 1997 a team of students from Aberdeen University carried out ecological investigations in the area to be flooded by the reservoir. The Ghanaian environmental journalist Mike Anane, who was included in UNEP’s Global 500 Roll of Honour for 1998, called the dam an "environmental disaster" and a "textbook example of wasted taxpayer money". In his article he quoted the investigation team, but apparently somewhat exaggerated the environmental impact of the dam. The leader of the investigation team, the zoologist Daniel Bennett, clarified that "the opinions (Anane) attributes to our team are unfair and misleading". He added that "Contrary to Mr Anane's claims, we are unaware of any globally endangered species in Bui Nation

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