All buildings at risk can be repaired with Canal İstanbul’s budget

* Image: Greenpeace

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Greenpeace has released a statement ahead of the groundbreaking ceremony to be held for the Canal İstanbul project tomorrow (June 26) and said, "Don't let İstanbul be a fairy tale for your children."

Reminding the public that the project will cost 15 billion dollars, the statement has read, "The budget allocated to the project can neither make İstanbul more resilient to the climate crisis nor will it enable us to create an İstanbul that we can happily pass on to our children."

Greenpeace has also listed what can be done if the 15-billion-dollar budget allocated to the Canal İstanbul project is used as a funding for the fair transformation and green improvement of the city.

What will happen if the project is realized?

Greenpeace has once again warned the public about what will happen in the future if the Canal İstanbul project is realized:

• Agricultural fields, together with 2 dams along the route of the project, will be destroyed.
• In the face of changing climate conditions as well as the water and food crisis awaiting the world, injustice will become more grave in İstanbul, where 16 million people live.
• In the face of increasing food prices and limited access to water, vulnerable groups will be put in a more disadvantaged position.
• Carbon footprint will not decrease in İstanbul; the city will not be more resilient to the climate crisis; the gaps between the life qualities of different groups will not be bridged.

What can be done with 15 billion dollars?

Greenpeace has listed what can be done if the 15-billion-dollar budget allocated to the Canal İstanbulis spent for green improvements:

• In the face of drought, which is one of the greatest threats of the climate crisis, over 14 million households can be provided with 10-ton rainwater collection systems. It means that 140 million cubic meters of water can be collected. This amount is almost four times as much as the capacity of the Alibeyköy Dam (34 million cubic meters) and almost equal to that of the Terkos Dam (164 million cubic meters).
• Instead of fossil fuel-based energy policies, which is one of the major causes of the climate crisis, 5kW solar panels can be placed on the roofs of nearly 2 million houses. The total installed power of these solar panels is 9,800 megawatts. In other words, the current total installed power of Turkey will increase by 10 percent.
• At a time when the mucilage pollution threatening the seas is on the agenda of everyone, only 10 percent of the project's budget would suffice to set up biological wastewater treatment plants to treat the domestic wastewater of not only İstanbul, but the entire Turkey.
• In the face of the earthquake risk, the biggest danger awaiting Turkey, the related budget would suffice to repair all of the 194 thousand buildings detected to be at earthquake risk.

Çevik: İstanbul is our common heritage

Greenpeace Mediterranean Program Director Gökhan Çevik has also made a statement about the issue. He has briefly said:

While İstanbul is becoming more and more vulnerable to climate crisis due to the projects that will lead to irreparable damage, İstanbulites are now having difficulty breathing. In İstanbul, the groups vulnerable to climate crisis are becoming more vulnerable. 15 billion dollars is a very critical budget to make İstanbul more resilient to earthquakes, climate crisis and environmental disasters, to open new areas of employment and to eliminate the injustice among different groups.

Noting that "we are not late to pass on the İstanbul that we heard from our elders to our youngsters," Çevik has underlined that "it is still up to us to make İstanbul return to its old beautiful days and to create a more just İstanbul... İstanbul is the common heritage of us all."

About the groundbreaking ceremony

In his statements in 2021 so far, President and AKP Chair Erdoğan has been frequently talking about the Canal İstanbul project, an artificial sea-level waterway between the Black Sea and Marmara Sea.

Most recently, it has been announced that the groundbreaking ceremony will be held for the project on June 26, 2021.

Main opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) İstanbul MP Gökhan Zeybek has made a statement about the construction site set up in Sazlıdere shortly after Erdoğan's announcement of the ceremony.

The MP has said that the construction in question has nothing to do with Canal İstanbul, underlining that "it is the foundation of the bridge that will be constructed for a linking road of the Northern Marmara Highway."

The MP has further indicated that the bridge in question will be built between the second and third bridges to ease the burden caused by articulated lorries. "It is constructed for a road which is planned to extend from Çatalca - Nakkaş to Başakşehir," he has added.

The state-run Anadolu Agency (AA) has reported that foundations for the 1,618-meter cable-stayed bridge, the first to be constructed along the route of the canal, will be built to provide a crossing around Sazlıdere in Edirne province as part of the Northern Marmara Highway Project's Başakşehir-Bahçeşehir-Nakkaş section, including connecting roads.

The company to undertake the construction of the first bridge of the project has been indicated as the Rönesans Group. The company has so far undertaken several state projects, including the construction of the Presidential Complex in the capital city of Ankara.

The bridge, whose main span is set to be 440 meters long, will have 136 stay cables, 272 anchorages, and four lanes of traffic in both directions. The bridge's 196-meter towers will be built with "diamond" geometry.

NOTE: Life defenders and several occupational organizations as well as the opposition, including İstanbul Metropolitan Mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu, have been objecting to the project that foresees an artificial sea-level waterway between the Black Sea and Marmara Sea, which has been recently troubled with the mucilage or 'sea snot' problem.

(TP/SD)