The Senate unanimously passed into law the long awaited Hydro-Electric Power Producing Areas Development Commission bill (HYPADEC) yesterday.

Presenting the report of the Committee on Power on the floor of the Senate for third reading, the chairman Senator Nicholas Ugbane said that the committee had in may 2008 interacted with communities whose activities have been adversely affected by Dam operators with its attendant environmental degradation which includes lost of farm land, lost of lives as a result of flooding and submersion of entire villages.

"The commission is expected to advance solutions to the enormous challenges the host communities of the Hydroelectric Power Producing states are facing in the process address problems of environmental degradation

The aim of the Bill is to establish a commission to provide a healthy relationship between host communities and Dams operators, whose activities are beneficial to the public by way of generation of electricity and at the same time provide the needed infrastructure for the host communities, who might be affected by adverse of dam operators" Senator Ugbane explained.

The upper legislative chamber which moved into a committee of whole under the chairmanship Senate President David Mark to debate and consider the bill clause by clause sustained a provision of the bill which list Niger, Kwara, Kogi and Kebbi states and any other state where hydroelectric power generation has commenced as members of the commission with the headquarters in Minna Niger state.

Clause 11 section 1 and 2 of the bill states that, "there shall be paid and credited to the Fund established pursuant to subsection (1) of this section- 30 percent of the total revenue generated by Power Holding Company of Nigeria from the operation of the Hydroelectric dams in Nigeria"

The commission will also be funded with a 50 percent of money due to member states of the Commission from the ecological funds.