Hydroelectric Dams and Regional Planning: HIDRONOR and the Chocón-Cerros Colorados Complex (Patagonia, Argentina)

Abstract

In Patagonia, plans to develop the region and foster its integration to Argentina were originally related to the ideas and practices of regional planning. As part of policies in which new regions were defined by river basins, a series of hydroelectric dams became the spearhead of the sought-after development. In the so called Comahue region, and as part of the Chocón-Cerros Colorados Complex, a series of ten dams were built by HIDRONOR between the 1960s and 1990s. The aim of this paper is to delve into an analysis that goes beyond the problems posed by political history, and problematize some theoretical specificities of regional planning, such as the notion of region and the referentiality of certain dam projects, as a way of explaining the vicissitudes of the construction and management of this hydroelectric infrastructure in Patagonia. In so doing, we propose to study not only the formulation of the project but also its implementation, and to establish comparisons with similar cases in other Latin American countries like Brazil.