The Alaoa Multi-Purpose Flood Control Dam and Hydro Plant is the “anti-dote which will alleviate future floods from Cyclones,” reassured Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi.
According to Savali Newspaper, if all goes well, construction of the project will commence before the end of the year.
Prime Minister Tuilaepa made the comments in response to claims that “Government is sitting on its laurels after repeated flooding mayhem sustained by residents.”
“It’s abnormal for the political critics to remain silent during post disaster recovery period,” said Tuilaepa.
“And it’s a tactic to woo voters.”
“Government does not capitalize on the misfortunes of our country to win support and voters, we let our achievements speak for themselves,” he added noting that since the last flooding government with the full support from its development partners have been planning and designing the Alaoa Dam Project.
So far US$100 million in grant funding has been secured from the Asian Development Bank with additional financial support from Samoa’s other friends such as the Government of Australia to design, fund and construct the multi-purpose dam.
The Alaoa Flood Control Multi-Purpose Dam, is the brainchild of the Electric Power Corporation (EPC) and it is designed to minimize the flooding vulnerability to the Vaimauga District from Alaoa all the way down to the coastal area.
In its Inception Report tabled and approved by the Cabinet Development Committee, (CDC) EPC highlighted the three main objectives of the ambitious plan which are;
• Flood protection- to protect, reduce and mitigate damages of severe floods from the Vaisigano River on Government assets, infrastructure, and facilities, utilities, businesses, villages, personal properties, belongings and fatalities.
• Seasonal water supply- to contain and store water during severe floods to allocate part which will be stored to maintain supply all year found from wet to dry seasons. The Alaoa Water Treatment Plant is the Samoa Water Authority’s largest plant which supplies about 60% of Apia’s Water supply, and the dam storage will solve water shortages during the dry spells.
• Additional hydropower generation - to enable construction of a 1MW hydro plant to take advantage of stored water that would normally flow to the ocean to generate electricity. Stored water in the dam will also increase electricity production to existing hydro dams.