Barro Blanco Dam

Barro Blanco is a gravity dam on the Tabasara River in the Chiriqui Province of Panama. It began generating in 2017 with capacity of 28.56 MW. Although the government had authorized the dam, it suspended construction in February 2015 after protests. The President of the Republic authorized the partial restart of construction in August 2015, but prohibited the filling of the reservoir pending a final agreement. Important issues concerning the dam are controversial, such as the question whether the indigenous communities in the area initially had expressed their support or their opposition to the dam's construction and how well they had been informed about the project and its impacts prior to expressing their views.

The dam was designed to minimize the impact on the river, never leaving any section of the river dry. The roller-compacted concrete gravity dam is to have a maximum height of 44.91 m (147.3 ft) and a maximum reservoir surface of 2.58 km2 (1.00 mi2), including 0.69 km2 (0.27 mi2) currently occupied by the Tabasara River and 1.89 km2 (0.73 mi2) that would be inundated, according to the project design document submitted to the UN Clean Development Mechanism Executive Board. 0.07 km2 (0.027 mi2) of the inundated land would be located In the indigenous territory (Comarca) of the Ngöbe–Buglé people. The installed capacity of the planned hydropower plant is 28.84 Megawatt.

The project developer is Generadora del Istmo S. A. (GENISA), a Panamanian special purpose company created specifically for this project. GENISA is owned by the Kafie family: the public registry lists Luis Kafie (President), Luis Jose Kafie (Treasurer and Director), Shukri Kafie (Director), Eduardo Kafie (Director), Eduardo Kafie Atala (Director) and Christoper Kafie (Director) as member of the board of GENISA. The project is financed by loans that have been provided by two European state-owned banks that promote private sector investments in developing countries, the German Investment Corporation (DEG) and the Netherlands Development Finance Company (FMO), as well as by the Central American Bank for Economic Integration (CABEI). CABEI approved a USD 25 million loan to the project developer in 2011. Total funding from the three banks amounts to USD 78.3 million.

There is a long-standing conflict between the Ngäbe people and the government concerning mining and the construction of dams for hydropower generation in or near their territory. The Ngäbe-Buglé Comarca was created in 1997 for the use of the Ngäbe and Buglé indigenous communities. Despite this during the 1970s the Panamanian government proposed to dam the Tabasara with a 220MW hydroelectric project designed to supply energy to the proposed Colorado Copper Mines. This project was cancelled following widespread protests. They had won the first battle of the Tabasara dams, however, during the 1990s another project was proposed - this time a 48MW dam, they again successfully defeated this proposal. This thereafter resulted in the Panamanian government changing national law in order to repeal requirements related to participation from indigenous communities. This long history of conflict regarding their traditional and spiritual lands has resulted in the prolonged social mobilisation of the Ngäbe-Buglé communities.

Dam data from Wikidata (CC0) plus curated additions. Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).