Uganda's Power Drive Stills Rapids at the Headwaters of the Nile

Uganda hopes to increase access to electricity with the new Bujagali Dam on the Victoria Nile, but the project claimed a roiling rapids (below) that once attracted tourists and wildlife, like the Little Egret seen here.

Despite years of warnings, Richard Njuba was still stunned when Uganda's Bujagali Falls actually flooded in late 2011. For three years, the river guide had been taking people on boats for a closer view of the falls, which were not so much a waterfall but a series of raging rapids about six miles (ten kilometers) north of the source of the Nile.

In early November, Njuba noticed the water level rising, and less than two weeks later, the cascading falls were gone, he said.

The flooding of Bujagali Falls to create a reservoir was one of the last steps before the launch of Uganda's $862-million, 250-megawatt Bujagali Dam on the Victoria Nile, one of the two great tributaries to the world's longest river. Limited power-production testing began the first week of February, following nearly five years of construction and more than a decade of controversy.

The debates haven't ended, even as the countdown continues toward full power production within the next few months. On one side are the project team and the investors, eager for the hydropower project to succeed. On the other side are environmentalists, who have predicted the dam will harm biodiversity, curb local tourism, and lower water levels in Lake Victoria, the world's largest tropical lake.

National Geographic