Ministry Doctors Report To Get Approval For 3Rd Airport In İstanbul

A third airport in İstanbul which Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan wants to be built would result in the felling of millions of trees, the drying up of wetlands and the endangerment the migratory routes of birds as stated in a previous environmental impact assessment report, but none of these effects are mentioned in a more recent report, according to an article in the Radikal daily.



Erdoğan has said he wants a new airport in the north of İstanbul, although whether this was necessary was not discussed publicly at any point. Shortly after the announcement was made, an environmental report was drafted and released on April 9 by the Ministry of Environment and Urban Planning's Assessment and Evaluation Commission. The 238-page report said there were 70 lakes, smaller lakes and ponds that could affect the project's viability under Turkey's laws for wetlands protection. The commission, which studied the initial report, later prepared a final environmental report, according to the report by Radikal's Serkan Ocak published on Wednesday. The later report, released on April 22, only spoke of "random puddles, big and small."



The first report notes that the lakes in the area cover 660 hectares in total. Page 182 of the initial report says that the largest body of water is Lake Kulakçayırı, but this lake is not mentioned at all in the second and final assessment report. The final report says there are about 70 "large and small" random puddles and that the water from these can be used in the construction phase while debris from the construction work will be used to fill them up, saying that this will kill all the wildlife in the waters and the surrounding area.



The disappearance of the mention of lakes in the second report is obviously a move to save the project from Turkey's wetland protection laws, according to Murat Taşdemir, a former head of the Chamber of Environmental Engineers (ÇMO). The area chosen for the third airport is near Lake Terkos along the Black Sea coast of İstanbul. It is located at the junction between Arnavutköy-Göktürk and Çatalca and is one of the last green areas left in the city. The airport will be built on an area of 7,650 hectares. Approximately 6,172 hectares of this area is forested land while 660 hectares are bodies of water such as lakes and wetlands. The airport will be opened in 2017 according to the plan and will be able to accommodate 150 million passengers annually. The government has announced that a tender would be opened on May 3, but the final draft was issued only on April 22 and its approval is due on May 7. In other words, the tender will be opened before the environmental assessment project is even completed. Even in this planning phase, the project is violating environment regulations, according to the ÇMO, which has taken the project to the Ankara Administrative Court for a stay on the project.



The first report states that there are 2,513,341 trees in the area and that 657,950 of them will be cut down, while 1,855,391 trees can be transplanted to other areas. The final report doesn't give any tree count at all. But experts who spoke to Radikal said it is unlikely that such a huge number of trees as mentioned in the first report can be moved to other areas. Sedat Ayanoğlu, a professor from İstanbul University's forest engineering department, said: "Moving so many trees would cost billions. It would be cheaper to start a new forest from scratch." He said moving a tree and replanting it elsewhere was a highly complicated and costly process. "You can't possibly move an entire forest. Plus, where will these trees be moved to? That part was placed in the report to placate environmentalists. It is OK to cut down trees. The more important thing is the soil and when you build an airport, you are rendering the soil unusable. The relevant agencies have said this is an area that should be protected. The experts should definitely examine this environmental assessment report."



The report also says the airport is located three-and-a-half kilometers from the Odayeri Solid Waste Storage Field, İstanbul's largest waste storage area. Taşdemir said that according to civil aviation rules, the closest that a waste site can be located to an airport is 13.5 kilometers. Taşdemir also said the area has on average 197 days of strong winds, 32 days of storms and 65 cloudy days annually, based on measurements from the Kumköy Station, located 40 kilometers away from the chosen site. "At least two years of measurements should be conducted on the site for more reliable data. The locations for the runways are wrong. This area is better suited for wind tribunes, actually." The report also says there is a high risk of bird-plane collisions as the airport is going to be built along a major route for migratory birds.



Ornithologist Zeynel Arslan said all the decisions regarding birds should be decided before the project begins. "In this project, every single natural aspect that is a risk to airplanes is being ignored. We are saying that this area is a major migration route for 800,000 birds annually. These should be examined before any work is done. What if the risk is really high? They will have to take measures later to move the birds away, and the costs are going to become even higher." (Cihan/Today's Zaman)