Gao Shang, a retired government official living in Chongqing, often comes down to the banks of the Yangtze River to fish for carp in the fast-flowing waters. 'Yangtze River fish are wild, so they taste better than farmed fish,' he says as he checks his pole for a bite. The water is now dirtier than when Mr Gao, 70, was a boy. And with fishing stocks already in decline, he is worried that he will not be able to indulge in his favourite pastime when the massive Three Gorges dam project downriver is finished in 2009. 'The Three Gorges project is good for the nation, but it's bad for Chongqing because pollution and silt will increase,' he says. Mr Gao is not the only one who feels this way. Nine years into the construction of the planned 185-metre-high dam - the world's largest - the hydro-electric and flood-control project remains controversial. Although Sun Yat-sen, the nation's republican founder, explored the possibility of a dam as early as 1923, the debate among the leadership only started in earnest about 50 years ago. This went on for another 40 years before the government officially got behind the project. There has been a renewed flurry of interest recently as builders prepare to flood the dam's massive 600km-long reservoir in June next year, eventually bringing the water level to 175 metres. The focus of the interest is the cities, towns and farms which will be affected by the project. Chongqing municipality, whose border is within 160km of the dam, will be the worst affected area. It alone must move more than one million people, accounting for more than 85 per cent of the affected residents. The displacement will be enormous. Water will inundate 29 million square metres of homes, 200,000 hectares of farmland and the sites of 1,378 companies in Chongqing, official estimates show. Leaders have ordered local authorities to speed up work on relocation and cleaning up areas to be claimed by water. Even though Li Peng - the main patron of the dam - will step down as National People's Congress chairman next year, analysts say Beijing's commitment to the project will remain firm. But the results are not pretty. In towns along the river, workers have destroyed buildings below the expected waterline, leaving vast piles of rubble and turning the area into what one resident called 'a war zone'. Local officials say they are on schedule for relocation, but they admit that work to clean up pollutants is lagging. Many factories, including chemical plants, were moved to western areas in the 1950s and 1960s as officials saw them as strategic regions. Opponents criticise the social dislocation caused by the relocation of so many people and the impact on the environment. They say flooding the area will create 'toxic soup' and 'a septic tank'. But officials are clearly motivated by high ambitions. China hopes the project will bring a vast wave of prosperity by linking the backwards west to the booming eastern coast. 'The Three Gorges project will bring opportunity. After it is finished, 10,000-tonne boats will come to Chongqing,' says Kong Jianzhong, vice-director of economic co-operation with the city's Planning Commission. The country will need to develop deep-water ports on the upper reaches of the Yangtze to bring the export industry inland, which lags at least a decade behind the development of coastal provinces. Moreover, officials say the nation needs the project to control flooding on the world's fourth longest river and generate power to support future economic growth. In 1998, the worst flooding on the Yangtze in decades killed more than 4,000 people. But critics say the government has overstated the dam's ability to control floods and are also questioning the economic benefits. Patricia Adams, publisher of the Canada-based Three Gorges Probe, puts it bluntly: 'This is a project which has no sound economic basis. It is essentially there because of state decree.' State media has stopped giving figures for the estimated cost of the project. Officials have estimated total investment at US$24 billion (HK$186.7 billion), but opposition groups say the true figure is closer to US$72 billion because of higher relocation costs. Analysts say only time will tell if the project actually works and produces power efficiently. 'You never know until it's completed. It's very rare a hydro plant doesn't work, but it may not work to the efficiency that they might have planned for,' said Bill Laukka, managing director and Asia-Pacific regional head of utilities for JP Morgan Securities. The project has already brought significant change to the cities and towns along the river. In Fuling, a vast army of scavengers has descended on the ruins, chipping scrap metal out of reinforced concrete for eight yuan a kilo. On the outskirts of the town, four large housing blocks for an expected inflow of migrants made homeless by the project stand partly completed. Residents say many migrants have yet to take up residence since much of the housing is still unfinished. Further down the river in Wanzhou, large-scale protests have erupted as people refuse to move or seek increased compensation. Trucks filled with furniture and other belongings are parked along narrow city streets and neighbours greet each other with the phrase: 'Have you moved yet?' In Yunyang, workers are moving a 1,700-year-old temple to safer ground in a race to preserve cultural treasures. But residents fear that moving the temple dedicated to warrior Zhang Fei could bring bad luck. Given the sensitivity of the project at this stage, security is tight. Police are everywhere in Fuling and a crowd in Yunyang draws a propaganda official within minutes. Wanzhou residents are wary about speaking to visitors. Residents forced from their homes say they feel helpless as construction enters the third and final phase. 'We can't do anything about it,' a Fuling resident said. Graphic: THREE9GET