The Environment Ministry said that without its approval, Huadian Power International Corp. Ltd. and Huaneng Power International, Inc. (Huaneng Power) have begun blocking the middle reaches of the river in January 2009.
To protect the management of the environment and to punish the violation of the environment and illegal acts regarding the environment, the environmental ministry decided to suspend the construction projects in the middle reaches of the Jinsha River, said Spokesman Tao Detian.
Tao further added that the dams have large impacts on communities both upstream and downstream. Hence the companies must take into consideration the ecology of the Lijiang area.
China intends to construct 12 hydropower projects along the 1,423-mile Jinsha River. The river flows from northern Qinghai province down to Yunnan and Sichuan provinces.
The electricity output from these stations is projected to be equivalent to the output from the Three Gorges Dam in central China.
