Kajakai Dam
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The Kajakai Dam is one of the two major hydroelectric power dams of Helmand province in northern central Afghanistan. It is located 55 miles (90 km) north-west of Kandahar. It has a dual function to provide electricity and serves to irrigate some 650,000 acres (1800 km²) of formerly arid land. Water discharging from Kajakai traverses some 300 miles (500 km) of downstream irrigation canals feeding farmland. The Kajakai Dam is on the Helmand River,and was completed in 1953. This dam is 320 feet (100 m) high and 887 feet (270 m) long, with a storage capacity of 973,000 acre-feet (1.2 km³) of water.
In 1975, USAID commissioned the initial installation of two 16.5 MW generating units in a powerhouse constructed at the toe of the dam. This first stage powerhouse was actually constructed to house three equally sized units.
The Kajakai dam powerhouse was a bombing target by the US Airforce during their attack on Afghanistan in October 2001.[1]
With help from USAID, presently Unit 1 has been fully rehabilitated and currently produces 16.5 MW of reliable power. The Unit 3 rehabilitation will begin will disassembly in May 2006, with a scheduled return to service in early 2007. The new 18.5 MW Unit 2 turbine/generator has been contracted to China Machine Building International Corporation headquartered in Beijing. Engineering, design and procurement are ongoing. The work will be supervised by Montgomery Watson Harza and is planned to begin in September 2006 and be completed by June 2007. Central to the long-term energy security and sustained economic growth of South Eastern Afghanistan is the rehabilitation and expansion of the Kajakai HPP. As a critical component of the South East Transmission System, the capacity of the Kajakai HPP will be expanded to 51 MW with a future potential for an additional 100 MW.
Under on an accord signed between Iran and Afghanistan in 1972, Afghanistan is obliged to release at least 910 cubic feet (26 m³) of water a second. Taliban briefly stopped the flow of water to Iran when the latter threatened to attack in retaliation for what it claimed to be the killing of Iranian diplomats in Mazar-e-Sharif when the Taliban retook the city from the Northern Alliance the second time. At the time, the Helmand valley was going through a five year drought.
As a result, Iran's famous Hamoun lake dried up as did other regional pastures, leading to the death of flora and fauna and the perish of cattle and birds in the Sistan and Baluchistan province of Iran.[2]
In February 2007 the Kajakai Dam was the subject of fighting between NATO and Taliban, as part of the so-called Operation Kryptonite [3]. Over 700 Taliban, according to Helmand governor Assadullah Wafa coming from neighbouring Pakistan, Chechnya and Uzbekistan [4], fought against over 300 NATO troops, mostly Dutch and British. The number of casualties mentioned varies.
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