Depending on which way you look at it, Turkey is either blessed or cursed with great hydroelectric potential. Based on the number of lawsuits local residents in Turkey's water-rich Black Sea area have been filing to stop the construction of dams in their area, it would appear that they don't look too favorably on Turkey's push to increase its hydroelectric capacity.
As the Turkish daily Radikal discovered in an internal government report on dam building, the Black Sea villagers have good cause to worry about the dam building. From an article about Radikal's report in the Hurriyet Daily News:
The ministry that approved hydroelectric power plants in the Black Sea region has admitted in an internal report that their construction damaged the environment in the latest blow to Turkey’s ambitious dam-building plans.
“Excavations … caused destruction in forested areas. Current flow and the quality of the water in streams are negatively affected as a result of filling the streambeds with soil,” said a report prepared by the body overseeing hydroelectric power plants under the Environment and Forestry Ministry and the State Waterworks Authority, or DSİ, daily Radikal reported Wednesday.
The internal report, written in 2009, only recently found its way to the media. It said 15 firms that built power plants in the Black Sea province of Rize had been fined a total of 513,000 Turkish Liras for causing environmental damage....
....According to the internal report on the Rize dams: “The environment is polluted due to the lack of measures. The plants that have started to operate do not release the required amount of water into streambeds and fish passages have never been built.” Dams can be built with “fish ladders” or other structures that allow fish to continue their natural migration despite the obstruction of the river.
You can read the full article here.
Turkey has several other controversial dam projects, the most famous of them being the Ilisu project in southeast Turkey, part of the massive GAP irrigation project. For more details on that issue, take a look at this previous Eurasianet story.
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