The system of nine dams is being built solely to supply electricity for an aluminium smelter planned by US company Alcoa.

The flooding will devastate the breeding grounds for Pinkfooted Geese, the Jokulsa a Dal delta will disappear taking with it the birthing site for 400-600 pregnant Harbour Seals. A cull has already been organised to kill one third of Iceland's reindeer population, who would otherwise starve due to flooded grazing land and blocked migration routes.

The scheme was originally blocked by an environmental impact assessment due to: "substantial, irreversable negative environmental impact" but this was personally overturned by Iceland's Environment Minister.

Alcoa is closing two aluminium smelters in the US and relocating to Iceland, where electricity is cheap. Ironically it is Iceland's previously good CO2 emissions record that makes it such an attrative location for polluting industries, eager to fill Iceland's carbon quota agreed under the Kyoto Protocol.

Some activists got into the building, while others hung a banner and leafleted passers by, all four activists who entered where finally ejected and arrested along with another activist who locked on to the doors. All five were still being held in police custody at the time of going to press.