The Dam That Would Be Built — A Monument to Bureaucratic Madness

The Clyde Dam Finished, but Incomplete

Those who don't learn from the mistakes of history are likely to repeat them.

In the late 1970s and early 1980s, while working with the ACC in Wellington, I found myself a regular at Barrett's Hotel on Plimmer Steps. Every Friday evening, I'd sit down for a beer or two with public servants, including those from the Ministry of Works. These were the people behind the mighty — and deeply controversial — Clyde Dam project on the Clutha River.

It was like being a fly on the wall at a war council. They were already dug in, ideologically and emotionally. No matter the growing concerns over fault lines, hill erosion, spiralling costs, or declining electricity demand, they were hell-bent on building that dam — exactly where and how they wanted it.

A Child of "Think Big"

The Clyde Dam was conceived under Prime Minister Robert Muldoon's ambitious "Think Big" economic strategy — a response to the 1970s oil shocks and growing concern about New Zealand's dependence on foreign energy. Think Big was all about massive, state-led infrastructure and energy projects designed to make the country more self-sufficient and to boost industrial growth.

Approved in 1976, construction of the Clyde Dam began in 1979, in the rugged Cromwell Gorge of Central Otago. It was designed to have six turbines, though only four were ever commissioned. The dam would also create Lake Dunstan, flooding farms, orchards, homes, and heritage sites in the process.

Muldoon pushed ahead using the National Development Act, 1979, which allowed large-scale projects to bypass normal environmental and public scrutiny. It was government overreach at its finest — democracy be damned if it got in the way of concrete being poured.

A Project in Trouble from Day One

From the outset, serious concerns were raised:

• The Cromwell Gorge was geologically unstable, riddled with fault lines and landslip-prone schist hills.

• Independent experts warned of massive slope instability, which later proved correct.

• Remedial work ballooned in cost, including injecting grout into rock fissures and installing thousands of rock bolts — none of which had been budgeted for at the start.

• Estimated costs soared from $250 million to over $1.4 billion, making it one of the most expensive infrastructure projects in NZ’s history.

• Electricity demand forecasts were being revised down, meaning the dam's full capacity would likely never be needed.

• Alternatives — like a series of smaller "low dams" or different locations — were proposed and dismissed without serious consideration.

Environmentalists, including myself, local communities, and even some economists sounded the alarm. But inside the government's echo chamber, none of that mattered. The dam would be built. The Ministry of Works was entrenched, its rhetoric self-reinforcing, its critics dismissed as cranks.

And still they pushed on.

No Revisions. No Rethinking. No Dissent Allowed.

Safer sites had been proposed. More flexible low-dam options had been carefully modelled. Yet, every option outside the official plan was ridiculed or ignored. Dissenters were "anti-progress."

They weren't just building a dam — they were building a monument to their own certainty.

They got it: a big, expensive waste of money, with four big generators ... but only four turbines ever started (you can see evidence of this in the photo of the dam above). The other two were sealed and left unused — a telling symbol of ambition without foresight.

The Clyde Dam Wasn't Just an Engineering Failure — It Was a Failure of Mindset

That's the real lesson. When politics, bureaucracy, and ideology collide, it's not concrete that does the damage — it's the inability to change course once the first spade goes in.

And we're repeating the same mistake. Again and again.

From Think Big to Jab Big

The "dam mindset" is alive and well today.

We see it in the relentless vaccine campaigns, long after the evidence began to shift. "Safe and effective" was repeated like a holy chant, while adverse reactions mounted, natural immunity was ignored, and real questions were silenced. It stopped being science and became a state-sponsored dogma.

We see it in the dogged fluoridation of water supplies, even as international studies link fluoride to neurotoxicity and lower IQ in children. But the bureaucratic juggernaut won't back down. The experts have spoken, and no amount of public concern will slow them down.

We see it in the blind escalation of foreign wars. Ukraine is the new fantasy project: "Victory is certain if we just send more money and weapons." There's no exit plan. Only forward — into the fog.

The Common Thread: Bureaucratic Bunkers and the Fear of Being Wrong

Once a major policy is in motion, reversing it's unthinkable to those in power. Doing so would mean admitting fault. And in today's political climate, error is heresy.

In his article, "Landmark Study Finds Repeated mRNA Vaccination Increases Vulnerability to Cancer Progression", Dr Guy Hatchard wrote:

A test of truth needs three elements:

• Personal experience — what happens to people

• Scientific investigation — using logic and experimentation

• Traditional use — does it last in time?

Here's an astonishing example of ignoring truth, while operating inside a "bubble" of lies, misinformation, and self-righteousness. Both people in this interview display a lack of self-awareness of one's own fallibility - a complete and utter lack of awareness and fallibilty!

Instead of listening to data or to dissenting voices, they dig deeper. They insulate. They doubled down. And, as with Clyde, the people and the environment bear the consequences.

We Must Stand Outside the Bubble and Learn the Lessons of History

As free-thinkers, we must never stop questioning.

• We must never confuse policy with truth or slogans with science. We value adaptability, humility, and real-world evidence — not concrete ideologies.

• The Clyde Dam should be a reminder that big mistakes often begin with small certainties.

• The kind spoken over drinks in a pub, nodded at in cabinet meetings, and rubber-stamped by experts too comfortable in their own correctness.

• Let us learn from it. And let us not build more white elephants — whether of steel, stone, syringe, or state.

Yours in freedom, reason, and resilience,

Gary Moller