ASKİ General Directorate is carrying out cleaning work in Ankara Stream in order to prevent environmental pollution and ensure regular flow. ASKİ teams have cleared 3 thousand tons of materials so far within the scope of the work carried out for 170 months.
Continuing its environmentally friendly work, ASKİ General Directorate carries out cleaning work in Ankara Stream along a 20-kilometer line starting from Akköprü location of Yenimahalle district to the border of Etimesgut's Yeşilova District. In the works carried out for 3 months, 7 thousand 500 trips were made with trucks and 170 thousand tons of material accumulated at the bottom were removed from the tea.
ASKİ General Manager Memduh Aslan Akçay stated that a program was made to regularly clean the Ankara Stream in order to prevent it from threatening human and environmental health and to eliminate bad odor. He stated that after the completion of the 20-kilometer line between Akçay, Yenimahalle Akköprü and Etimesgut Yeşilova, 6 more kilometers will be cleaned along the Ankara Stream improvement, up to Sincan 1st OIZ, and then 10 kilometers of stream bed expansion and regulation work will be started.
BAD SMELL WILL ALSO BE PREVENTED
Stating that ASKİ attaches great importance to the cleaning work in Ankara Stream to protect public health, Akçay said:
“Ankara Stream is the 2nd largest tributary of the Sakarya River and starts from the east of the capital, merges with Çubuk Stream in Sincan, passes through Ayaş, Beypazarı and Nallıhan districts and divides Ankara into 2. The stream, whose reclamation was completed in 2013, also carries the rainwater load of Ankara. During the sudden floods and floods we encountered in the past due to the climate crisis and global warming, we experienced situations where the Ankara Stream reached its full capacity and sometimes exceeded its capacity. Our teams roll up their sleeves to solve such problems and work 7 hours a day, 24 days a week. It is very important to ensure regular flow in the Ankara Stream to prevent flood scenes. As a result of 3 months of work, we removed 170 thousand tons of material accumulated at the bottom from the tea. The cleaning provided by a total of 7 trips with trucks will also prevent the formation of bad odor in the Ankara Stream.
THE DISABLED BRIDGE WAS ALSO DEMOLISHED
In addition, in the cleaning work carried out; During the rehabilitation work carried out in 2013, we noticed that the old bridge was not demolished although a new one was planned. Our teams contacted the Ankara Metropolitan Municipality Department of Technical Affairs and ensured the demolition of the now idle bridge. “The old bridge posed a risk by greatly reducing the stream bed cross-section.”
STREAM IMPROVEMENT WORK
Pointing out that Ankara Stream is fed by Çubuk, Hatip, Ova and İmrahor Streams and Ravlı and Söğütözü Streams, Akçay noted that ASKİ teams cleaned these streams from the sediments and plants brought by the rains.
WASTE WATER WAS TRANSFERRED TO THE STORM WATER LINE
In 2021, ASKİ determined that the wastewater (sewage) of Yenimahalle's Ergazi and Turgut Özal Neighborhoods mixed with the Ankara Stream and created pollution, and carried out work to separate the wastewater.
In fact, although it is a very important fresh water source for the city, Ankara Stream has been polluted for years due to domestic and industrial wastes as well as natural elements, and has been raising pollution alarms since the 1990s. ASKİ strives to prevent bad odor and environmental pollution by cleaning the Ankara Stream on a programmed basis.