El Diquís Hydroelectric Project

The El Diquís Hydroelectric Project is an ICE (Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad or Costa Rican Electricity Institute) hydroelectric dam project, currently in the planning stages, to be located between Buenos Aires, Osa, and Pérez Zeledón in Costa Rica. Planned as the largest hydroelectric dam in Central America, the El Diquís (Boruca/Veraguas) Hydroelectric Project will generate electricity for more than one million consumers (producing 631 MW), dwarfing the Pirrís hydroelectric plant which completed construction in January, 2011 and is set to begin producing electricity in September 2011. The project will require 7363.506 hectares of land, 915.59 hectares of which are indigenous territories, and displace 1547 people. It would also employ in the region of 3,500 people and the electricity produced has the potential to be exported to neighbouring countries.

This $2 billion (US) project is now named the PH Diquis Project by ICE. In October 2011, The Constitutional Chamber (Sala IV) of the Supreme Court of Costa Rica gave ICE a six-month deadline to make peace with indigenous residents in the Terraba area. Under international treaty signed by Costa Rica ICE must respect Terraba indigenous lands.

It is part of the PPP - Plan Puebla Panama - via SIEPAC. Oddly, SIEPAC Section 17, still unbuilt yet would serve as the transmission line, is part of what is the MesoAmerican Biological Corridor, The Path of The Tapir. The entire corridor was formerly in the scope of the PPP.

The dam's electrical operating plant is proposed at Palmar Norte some distance from the dam itself. The project includes two tunnels one gravity fed and the other electrically waters to be pumped back behind the dam. Palmar Norte is a small village located in the Diquis Valley within a RAMSAR designated watershed/mangrove region - the Humedal Nacional Terraba-Sierpe covering 32,235 Hectares, where billions of marine lifeforms are born. It is the largest wild mangrove region in Central America established as a forest park in 1977 and receiving RAMSAR status in 1995. Located nearshore to this intricate watershed is the only marine site on Earth where both subspecies of Humpback Whales congregate. National Geographic states one of five last wild places is adjacent to this region, The Osa Peninsula. Nearshore is the protected island of Canos. Strong opposition to the project from Women of the Osa, Nature Conservancy, ASANA, eco-lodges serving the upscale tourism, international travelers who have settled in the area, and nearby communities are against the dam. It is estimated over 200 sacred Indigenous sites would be destroyed by the project.

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