Dilan Babat-Zeynep Turgut

 

ARDAHAN - Hydroelectric power plants (HES) and dams built in Posof, Hanak and Çıldır districts of Ardahan province keep posing a threat to the environment. The Kura River, which flows to the Caspian Sea from around Göle, has been dried up due to HES.

 

Hydroelectric power plants (HES) and dams built in Posof, Hanak and Çıldır districts of Ardahan province keep posing a threat to the environment and life. A university student Rojda Gül says the Kura River, which flows to the Caspian Sea from around Göle, has been dried up due to HES and she adds, “If they want to produce electricity they can do it with natural methods. A production destroying the spaces of living creatures and killing them will not be useful. I have been here for four years, Kura River is located here. The river overflowed in springs but it has begun to dry up for two years. The Kura River has been dried up due to HES.

 

Stating that the animals have been also killed following the HES buildings, Rojda says, “It threatens not only the animals but also the living spaces of the people and their breathing zone air.” Rojda is from Halfeti, Urfa province and she says the history of Halfeti was destroyed due to HES built there; “The people’s history was destroyed due to HES built in Halfeti and their means of living has been left under water. People damage nature when they interfere in the nature. We are opposed to the building of HES. The only thing that will remain for us is the nature. We shouldn’t play with our nature.”

 

‘Neither nature nor people have any importance for those who building HES’

 

Another university student Feyyza Nur Demir indicates that Ardahan is not geographically suitable for HES and she adds, “Ardahan is geographically plain. After the buildings of HES, floods will occur. They will threaten the lives of people and the nature day by day. The fishes in the Kura River have begun to die one by one. The people living in this area have made a living by fishing, but the plants buildings have begun to destroy their means of living. But the lives of people aren’t important for those who building HES and they continue to build HES. Hydroelectric power plants are for killing the nature. We should produce electricity but we can produce from the sun.”