The Black Sea under attack (2)

One of the speakers at the Çayeli Panel was Mehmet Albayrak, who worked at the Çayeli Copper Mine for years before retiring... Today, Çayeli Copper Enterprises, owned by Cengiz Holding, wants to expand... It wants to increase its capacity and conduct open-pit mining on land that encompasses 24 villages...

Mehmet Albayrak's accounts were significant... Because Albayrak worked in the ore processing department at the Çayeli Copper Mine for years, managed and used dangerous chemicals, and is someone who knows the mine from the inside. He wants to shout out what he has experienced and the danger that Çayeli and the Black Sea are facing. 

TOXIC WASTE DISCHARGED DIRECTLY INTO THE BLACK SEA

Stating that chemicals at least as dangerous and toxic as “cyanide” are used in copper mines, Mehmet Albayrak explains that toxic gases such as “sulfur dioxide” and “hydrogen sulfide” are released during chemical processes, and that “sulfuric acid” is used abundantly in the facilities. Moreover, the toxic waste generated at Çayeli Copper Enterprises is discharged directly into the Black Sea. It is called a Deep Sea Discharge System... 650 tons per hour, 483 thousand tons per month, and approximately 6 million tons of toxic waste per year (process waste sludge and wastewater generated after the ore enrichment process) are dumped into the Black Sea. 

The mine's toxic waste, transported by pipes to 273 meters offshore, is sent to the bottom of the Black Sea. This is what they call a solution! This is what they call disposal! What is it, they say there is no life below 200 meters in the Black Sea anyway. Yes, there may be a toxic gas mass below 200 meters in the Black Sea that does not allow for living organisms... But if you fill the region where the toxic gas mass is located with your toxic waste, won't this toxic mass move towards the surface? The most basic rule of physics: If you load a region where there is a liquid and gas mass, you cause that liquid or gas to overflow... In other words, with this process you present as a solution, you are pushing the toxic mass at the bottom of the Black Sea toward the surface...

In addition, millions of tons of sulfur-containing waste, which we call Acid Mine Drainage, which will cause sulfuric acid leakage, have been piled up on the edges of streams and gardens in Çayeli, and they continue to be piled up... 

Now they are planning to both expand the mine and turn it into an open-pit operation... This means ecological destruction will occur on a much larger scale. Whatever is happening in Murgul will happen in Çayeli... Steps have been taken... Licenses have been granted... 

A similar picture is emerging in the Murgul Copper Enterprises, also operated by Cengiz Holding, in Artvin, a region not too far away. Since they cannot perform deep sea discharge there, they keep the toxic waste in waste dams. In those waste dams that eventually leak, overflow, and burst... It is said that a capacity increase will be made in an area of 200 thousand decares in Murgul as well. 

A DISASTER NARROWLY AVERTED

Mehmet Albayrak recounts with excitement, as if reliving that day, how a disaster was narrowly averted in an incident he personally witnessed at the Çayeli Copper Facilities. According to Albayrak, the tank storing sulfur dioxide (SO2), a chemical released during chemical processes at the mine and at least as toxic as cyanide, exploded... By a great stroke of luck, the heavy rains that day prevented the toxic gases scattered from the exploding tank from spreading into the atmosphere. Due to the heavy rains, the sulfur dioxide gas fell to the ground as acid before it could spread into the environment... Normally, the sulfur dioxide released during chemical processes in the facilities is combined with water to produce sulfuric acid, but the explosion in the sulfur dioxide tank occurred before this process could be carried out. 

Mehmet Albayrak says exactly this: “If we carry out these chemical processes we are doing in the form of an open-pit operation that covers 24 villages, neither nature, nor the sea, nor the air conditions will be livable...” 

In fact, the General Manager of Çayeli Copper Enterprises, upon learning that he would attend the panel, called him and tried to prevent his participation. The Çayeli Panel was actually going to be held in the hall of the Mukhtars' Association with the contributions of the Çayeli Mukhtars' Association and the participation of the mukhtars, but at the last minute, due to phone calls and pressure from the government wing, the mukhtars withdrew their support for the panel. Most of the mukhtars did not attend the panel, they were afraid to attend... The panel was almost at the point of being canceled... The panel could only be held thanks to the firm stance of MHP Çayeli Mayor İsmail Çiftçi, a childhood friend of Hikmet Eren, and his allocation of a municipal hall...

They have the majority of the media in their hands; along with state-controlled broadcasting organizations and a sycophantic media... They have all kinds of news published and apply all kinds of manipulation... Still, it is not enough; they want to silence those who tell the truth by any means necessary...

Rize politician and former Member of Parliament Mehmet Bekaroğlu, who attended the panel as an audience member, also made a short but striking speech:  

“It was illegal according to the Constitution to tear up pastures and mountains like this, to plunder the coasts and seas... They came and brought a constitutional amendment by saying, ‘We will ensure that Kenan Evren is tried.’ We all went and supported it by saying, ‘Okay, let them be tried,’ but with that, they paved the way for all of this as well... One person opens pasture lands to construction, one person opens forests to mining... We are all guilty... There will be no greenery left for our children, there will be no clean milk left for our children... So much plunder is taking place and we know nothing. Even the current Constitution mandates the informing of citizens, but we don't know. These are the guilty ones... They are the cause of this country being plundered in this way... Why does Trump like them so much... Period...” 

After eating our dried beans and rice at the famous Hüsrev Restaurant in Çayeli, we set off for Artvin with Pharmacist Nursal Bülbül and Uğur Karakuş from the Green Artvin Association. Along the way, we saw places that had been blown away or suffered landslides... The geography consists of very rugged, rocky, and steep slopes... It has become a paradise-like region over millions of years... Covered with trees, streams, rivers, and agricultural islets in its valleys that provide a Mediterranean climate... The region is a complete living space... It needs to be protected... 

Hatila Valley... Like an epic... It has National Park status and is under protection, but now the protections of national parks are only on paper... In a country where the Constitution is not applied and laws are not enforced, everything depends on a signature and a word from one person's mouth... Just as no individual has any security, no mountain, forest, or village has any security either... They are shrinking national parks, destroying nature conservation areas... We are going through such a period...

The company that caused the February 13, 2024, Çöpler Disaster in this country is now working to open a similar mine, the Hod Gold-Silver-Copper Mine... Together with Nur Neşe Karahan from the Green Artvin Association, Lawyer Bedrettin Kalın, Pharmacist Nursal Bülbül, Uğur Karakuş, Faculty Member Tolga Odabaş, and journalist friends from Artvin, we went to the Hod Gold Mine in two vehicles...

İbrahim Gündüz

(To be continued tomorrow)