Submerging Cities and Towns There is one thing which seems pretty clear to me and it is the fact we are causing a lot of cities and towns to be put under water. When it is done on purpose it is usually for the purpose of building a dam which needs a lake behind it. One of the main reasons for needing the dam is to generate cheap electricity. Hydroelectric power is one of the cheapest ways to generate it. Once the price of the dam construction and land purchases if necessary, the power only costs the price of keeping the generators running. Sometimes people are not happy when places get submerged. Currently many people seem to be showing their displeasure with the Turkish government. The city of Hassankeyf is estimated to be 12,000 years old and it is soon to be submerged due to dam construction. Some people are calling the Turkish government barbarians over this. Some objects are being moved such as a bathhouse, but the bulk of the city will be put under water. Why is Turkey doing this? In 2012 a survey was taken which had results showing 100 percent of the population had electricity. Yet this is the stated reason for submerging the city. The problem is increased electrical use. Turkey is a country riddled with ancient buildings, towns and cities and the government must have thought it was far more important to make sure no one ran out of electricity than protect what it felt was just one of thousands of ancient relics. It is said this power plant will put out as much electricity as a small nuclear plant. What Turkey is doing is nothing new. For those of you old enough to remember the Egyptians built the Aswan Dam. They built a reservoir behind it which is huge. It was named Lake Nasser and is 298 miles long, almost 10 miles wide and has a surface area of 2,030 square miles. As you might suspect you cannot build a lake this big in Egypt without covering ancient constructions. The lake is so large it not only is in Egypt but also partially in the Sudan. Some ancient temples and such were moved to higher ground to allow them to continue to be seen. There is a problem which has the Egyptians very worried. A new dam under construction called the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam and Ethiopia and Sudan will be the beneficiaries of it, but on the other hand the Egyptians worry it may take water from the Nile stopping them from filling Lake Nasser or at the least providing less water for electrical generation. The year was 1959 and the Chinese were desperate for more electrical power generation. The area where they wanted to construct their dam and lake would cause the 600 year old Lion City to be lost. The dam was needed to supply electricity to the city of Hangzhou. Once the dam was constructed everyone seemed to forget about the Lion City until the government discovered the ruins in 2001. Their expedition came across a small city with wide streets. The Lion City was not the only city to be sent to the bottom by the man-made lake. Other ancient cities were in the area and also submerged. He Cheng was even older having been established in 208 A.D. Here is an ironic thing, the fresh water is a better protector of ancient ruins than the air. St. Thomas, Nevada was what in the United States would be called a very old town, but not by any stretch in other places. It was established in 1865 and was a Mormon outpost and then an agricultural community. In the 1930s it was decided electricity was more important than preserving St. Thomas and the Hoover Dam was erected and Lake Mead created which sent St. Thomas to the bottom of the lake. There was a village in Portugal named Vilarinho Das Furnas. Some say it was very picturesque. The local power company wanted to erect a dam which would cause Vilarinho Das Furnas to be sent to the bottom of a man-made lake. The purpose of the dam was for electrical power generation. The villagers were not happy. The town had existed for over 2,000 years. It is said it was founded by the Romans in the first century A.D. This move might have been regretted by Portugal because they ultimately built a museum in tribute to the submerged town. The museum was built from old village stones. New York City it is said has caused more towns to be submerged than any other city. This is because at the early part of the 20th century dozens of towns and villages were submerged. This all had to do with supplying water to the city. Most of this happened in the Catskills. This was because reservoirs were being constructed and when these towns and villages got in the way, they were submerged. One of the towns which was flooded was named Neversink. Spain was also creating reservoirs and one they created was the Mediano Reservoir . In order to create this reservoir, the Church of Mediano, a 16th century church had to be submerged. The reservoir is not deep enough where the church is located to cover it entirely. You can still see the church spire sticking out of the water even when the reservoir is full. It is not the only old church which was swallowed by water in reservoir creation in that country. The village church of the village of Sant Roma de Sau is a church which is over 1,000 years old. When the reservoir which is located in Catalonia gets low it can be seen. Russia also has submerged churches. The 12th century town of Kalyazin, Russia was ordered flooded to create the Uglich reservoir. Several ancient buildings in the town were submerged along with two monasteries and the Kalyazin Bell Tower. It belongs to 19th century construction and is 244 feet high and one of the tallest Orthodox Christian structures in the world. As hard as it is to believe the tower still has services conducted in it several times a year. It has been said in the last century and this one, we are responsible for more towns, cities and villages being sent to the bottom of lakes and reservoirs than ever before. It is kind of sad in a way, because there is no denying we are destroying our heritage, but it is a balancing act and we have to consider which is more important in each case, saving a location or providing for people.
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