The Istanbul Branch of the Chamber of Mining Engineers announced the Kanal Istanbul report. It was emphasized that only the excavation, transportation and storage costs reached 75 billion liras, which was determined as the entire cost of the channel.
Istanbul, Marmara Region, Marmara Sea and Black Sea are faced with an irreversible project regarding its effects and damages. Numerous planning studies and scientific research data produced by hundreds of scientists and professionals, universities, trade associations, municipalities, public institutions and organizations with years of experience are ignored; The interests of construction capital close to power are prioritized. A project that Istanbul and the people do not need is served by hiding the truth. "Kanal Istanbul", which is tried to be legitimized by opening discussion through discourses and assumptions that do not have a scientific and technical quality; Geographical, ecological, economic, sociological, urban, cultural in short, it is a vital destruction and disaster project.
A technical evaluation report was prepared in line with the information given in the EIA Report1 on the subjects of "Excavation, Blasting and Transport", which fall under the mining engineering field, together with the "Channel Istanbul Working Commission" established in our TMMOB Chamber of Mining Engineers Istanbul Branch. The report was also shared with TMMOB Kanal Istanbul Science Board and was used in the EIA annulment case. The evaluation report we have prepared is limited to excavation, blasting and transportation issues that fall into our profession. Examining the evaluations of the professional chambers of engineering and architecture disciplines within TMMOB2 and the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality3 and different scientists regarding the Kanal Istanbul Project, which is an ecological destruction, rent and real estate project, will be more healthy in terms of understanding the subject as a whole.
Kanal Istanbul Project proposes to connect the Marmara Sea to the Black Sea by continuing along a 45 km route following the Küçükçekmece Lake, Sazlıdere Dam-Terkos Dam. It is envisaged that the canal will be 45 km long, 25 m deep and 250 m wide.
According to the EIA Report, an excavation of 1.1 billion cubic meters is made within the scope of the project; It is planned that most of the excavations will be carried out with backhoe loader construction equipment and only 3,8% will be done with blasted excavation, and the material obtained after the excavation will be transported by 200 m3 mining type rock trucks. The excavations of the Kanal Istanbul Project are planned like the open mining method in mining. It is planned to excavate the slopes on both sides of the channel with electric rope shovels and blast excavation, and transport the excavated material to the fill area on the Black Sea coast by rock trucks. In our country with this type of construction machinery for more than 50 years of excavations are carried out in different mining operations, including mainly Turkey Coal Enterprises. For this reason, the Channel Istanbul Project was intended to be evaluated scientifically and technically in the excavation-blasting-transportation fields that concern the mining engineering discipline; It was not shared transparently with professionals and the public. In the examinations made on the EIA Report, it is clearly seen that the project costs will be much higher than the specified, and even only the channel excavation, transportation and storage costs will exceed the costs specified for the entire channel. Keeping the technical details of a project such as Kanal Istanbul, which may pose major environmental, economic and political problems in the implementation and final stages, from the public is neither appropriate in terms of engineering ethics nor legal in terms of the public's right to information. Hiding information from the public, scientists and professionals is a crime.
Detailed technical information / data regarding the calculation of the size of the excavation, which constitutes the largest item of the project cost, has not been shared. All this information regarding the life of the project, excavation patterns and therefore possible changes in environmental impacts should be shared with the public. Although the geological formations of the excavation areas were specified, the swelling factor, which has a direct effect on loading and transportation operations, was calculated incorrectly. The blasting design and calculations of the project were technically incorrect. The careless preparation of the blasting designs of such a large project gives clues about the engineering designs of the overall project. Excavation, blasting and shipping deadlines conflict with each other in different parts of the report. The planned deadline from the procurement of the construction equipment to the completion of the excavation and transportation works specified in the EIA Report will exceed the periods specified in the report. The deadline for the entire project has been specified as 7 years and the excavation period as 4 years, but it will take 200-3 years to procure only 400 rock trucks of 3 m4. The planning, deadline and cost calculations of the project, the details of which are shared in the rest of the report, do not present integrity.
The technical evaluation of the issues related to the mining engineering discipline of Kanal Istanbul is shared in detail in the rest of our report within the framework of the "information in the EIA Report". Kanal Istanbul is not a transportation project, but a real estate and rent project. For the cancellation of the Kanal Istanbul Project, which is an urban crime to be committed against Istanbul, the public and the nature, an EIA cancellation case has been filed by Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, political parties and democratic mass organizations, especially TMMOB and its components. In this process, experts were requested from universities by the court. In the petition of the court's request to the universities, expert opinion was requested for the subject of "Explosive excavation" under the heading "Environment". Expressed as "explosive excavation", the specialty of "explosive excavation" falls under the discipline of mining engineering in our country. Blasting training is not provided in engineering departments other than mining engineering, and engineering disciplines other than mining engineers do not conduct blasting works. However, there is no mining engineering department among the departments for which expert opinion is requested by the court presidency (Annex-1). For this reason, an expert must be requested from the mining engineering department in order to evaluate the "blasting excavation calculations, blasting plans, blasting works, environmental effects of blasting, excavation and transportation" works of the Kanal Istanbul Project, both scientifically and technically. As TMMOB, an objection was made to the court's interim decision on this matter.
The exploded excavation process, which has been used in mining for more than a century in the world and in our country, is a method that has been used frequently in construction excavations in recent years. The TMMOB Chamber of Mining Engineers has scientifically organized drilling and blasting in excavation and blasting areas; Open pit excavations, underground excavations, symposiums in the field of mining machinery, congresses, scientific books and reports, and our country's knowledge in this field are among the biggest institutions. The evaluations made specific to the Kanal Istanbul EIA Report are also handled within the framework of this knowledge and scientific facts. In this framework, two main points should be considered while evaluating a project. The first is whether the public benefit of the project, that is, whether it is useful in terms of the needs / future of the people, the city and the living spaces, and the second is whether the project includes technical rights in terms of engineering. Kanal Istanbul Project is unacceptable in these two basic points. Therefore, Kanal Istanbul EIA Report and Project should be canceled.
For Channel Istanbul Excavation and Transport Technical Evaluation Report CLICK HERE
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