The three days of rain expected to hit the western province of Kütahya may cause a partially collapsed dam containing cyanide-contaminated water to overflow, experts said Tuesday as the area prepared for a potential evacuation.
“Rainfall tomorrow is expected to be nearly five times higher than average. It is highly probable that the dams will collapse tomorrow. We are making our last call, evacuate the region straight away,” said Murat Taşdemir, the head of the Turkish Union of Engineers’ and Architects’ Chambers, or TMMOB’s, Chamber of Environmental Engineers.
Expressing alarm that the threat posed by the failing dams at a silver mining facility had not been allayed, Taşdemir said hospitals in Kütahya and the nearby province of Eskişehir should immediately be provided with antidotes for cyanide poisoning.
Villagers meanwhile held a protest calling for the closure of the Eti Silver Corporation, which owns the silver mining and refining facility where two embankments at a three-stage dam collapsed over the weekend. Workers are trying to strengthen the embankments and prevent the cyanide-contaminated water from leaking outside the facility, which is located some 34 kilometers from downtown Kütahya.
The third embankment could also collapse at any time, according to geology engineer Tahir Öngör. In a worst-case scenario, he said, the wastewater containing cyanide and heavy metals could reach the Porsuk Dam in Eskişehir and even flow into the Black Sea via the Sakarya River, daily Radikal reported Monday.
“The Porsuk Dam is critical because it provides drinking water to Eskişehir,” Öngör said. “Within a period of a week or a month, the waste [from Eti Silver] could reach the dam. As the rivers have many branches, northern parts of residential areas in Eskişehir and Kütahya are in danger.”
The waste, which includes carcinogenic materials, could cover fields for two or three kilometers and could also reach the Enne Dam northeast of the area, the geology engineer said, adding that it would not be possible to control the flow of contaminated water were the dam to burst.
Kütahya Gov. Kütahya Kenan Çifti said that strengthening work had started on the dam, based on a report by Middle Eastern Technical University, and that a new 500,000-square-meter holding pool would be completed within 10 days, the Doğan News Agency, or DHA, reported Tuesday.
“The rainwater is directed outside of the dam using rain gutters. It is not possible for the rain to penetrate inside the dam. When the new pool is completed in 10 days, the rainwater will be transferred there,” Çifti said.
Environmentalist Güven Eken, chairman of the Doğa Association, told the Hürriyet Daily News on Monday that the building of a new dam to contain pools of cyanide-contaminated water at a silver mining facility in western Turkey is not a permanent solution.
An informational meeting about the situation was held Monday evening for residents of Köprüören, a village with a population of 650, said Cemalettin Küçük, the executive board chairman of TMMOB’s Chamber of Metallurgical Engineers.
“This place is at risk every day, hour and second. Environment Minister [Veysel] Eroğlu said there is no cyanide leak. They claim there is no cyanide in the region. Here another problem arises. The danger does not disappear even though we strengthen the barrier and prevent the spread of waste,” Küçük said.
“Tons of the cyanide-containing water could vaporize each day. When this very hazardous gas is spread around, people inhaling it will slowly but surely come down with a variety of diseases,” he said.
Village women held a protest in front of the facility and called for the closure of the Eti Silver Corporation, saying they are anxious about the risk posed by the dam.
The Council of Turkish Medicine Association has released a written statement saying that the collapse of the embankments would create fatal threats to human health and the environment.
My last post.
