The company contracted to build the Rogun Dam has not agreed to install equipment for the hydropower plant (HPP) and a new contractor is needed. Safety recommendations require guarantees like additional tunnels before closure of the river can occur. The dam is located in a seismic zone on salt layers, so its 1960s design raises questions. Downstream countries doubt claims that the project benefits them, as the reservoir could damage ecology and undermine balance further after the Aral Sea shrank. Uzbekistan's new president strongly objects to construction on transboundary rivers without assessing environmental impacts, and increased glacial melting from climate change within decades may lower river flows contrary to the outdated HPP design.

1. The company Salini undertook to build the Rogun Dam (Lot No. 2), but not to build the Rogun HPP
with the installation of its equipment. For construction of HPP and hydraulic structures on the left
and right banks, it is still necessary to find a general contractor before October 2016, otherwise
Salini does not undertake to fulfill its obligations to build the dam.
For safety of the Rogun dam the closure of the Vakhsh river by the end of October 2016 according
to the recommendations of the World Bank is to be carried out only if the following guarantees will
be fulfilled: 1 - construction of the upstream coffer dam before May 2017; 2 - accident-free flood
passage in May 2017; 3 - construction of diversion tunnel No. 3 (2 km long), which now is ready
only for 25% and can be completely constructed no earlier than in two years; 4 - construction of
open sections of tunnels passing through the Vakhsh river channel.
The highest dam in the world is under construction in the zone of tectonic fault with high seismicity
on huge salt layer. In this regard the Rogun project, based on engineering solutions and standards
of the 60s years of the last century, causes justified questions and objective concerns. In fact, the
Rogun HHP is an old and unfeasible project.
Assurances of Tajikistan that Rogun project is beneficial for the countries lying downstream of the
Amu Darya and the Syr Darya revers cause proper doubts and unrealistic. The creation of large
Rogun reservoir will cause huge damage to these countries, undermine the ecological balance in
this region, which is already disturbed due to the shallowing of the Aral Sea.
The new president of Uzbekistan continues to sharply object to the construction of the Rogun HPP.
Tajikistan's willing to build the Rogun HPP on transboundary rivers causes a legitimate concern in
Uzbekistan. Construction of Rogun dam without complex assessment of the project's impact on the
regime of the Amu Darya river and all environmental factors appears to be a dangerous solution.
Another important argument against construction of Rogun HPP is the increased melting of glaciers
in the Tien Shan mountains caused by the climate warming, which leads to an increase in the runoff
of the rivers they feed, and the area of the glaciers themselves, which in the future will lead to a
reduction in runoff. By 2040 the area of glaciers in Central Asia will be reduced by 80% and
accordingly the river run-off will decrease by 25-30%. Salt from the bottom of the Aral Sea by wind
currents shifts towards mountain ridges, settles on glaciers and accelerates their melting. This most
important factor was ignored during development of Rogun HPP. The installed capacity of the HPP
was established in the 1960s under different climatic conditions and has not been revised to date,
taking into account radically new hydrological data.